"ANY FOOL CAN COMMIT A MURDER BUT IT TAKES AN ARTIST TO COMMIT A GOOD NATURAL DEATH.."

INSIDE THE NKVD POISON FACTORY
'THE CHAMBER' (KAMERA)

Since the early 1930's, the Russians had been experimenting and developing poisons and weaponry at a number of secret locations with one specific purpose in mind, assassination.

One of these establishments was focused purely on poisons and poison delivery techniques.

SOURCE DOCUMENT

Some background, following the assassination of President Kennedy in 1964, the CIA undertook an investigation into the capabilities of the USSR in an effort to ascertain whether the Russians had the capability and to carry out the killing. The report has been released by the CIA and it describes, in some cases in quite fine detail, methods, poisons, and equipment created and used by the Soviets up to 1964. Much of what you will read here comes from that document.

"EXECUTIVE ACTION"

'Executive Action', was also known as 'Liquid Affairs' within the ranks of the KGB and coincidentally 'Wet Jobs' within allied agencies. These were State-sanctioned and executed assassination operations. 

Their targets ranged from normal soviet citizens to high profile defectors and would-be defectors, non-resident within the USSR. It was the latter that caught my attention as you might expect.

The Poisons

"The Chamber" (Kamera). This laboratory conducted experiments on prisoners and persons subject to execution to test the effectiveness of different powders, beverages, and liquors, and various types of injections, as well as research on the use of hypnotism to force prisoners to confess. Besides its staff, only certain high-level persons were permitted to enter its premises.

Delivery methods included in food, cigarettes and of special interest, a great deal of effort went into the development of poison vapours.

Whichever was used, the selected poisons were generally undetectable. and medical examiners were often fooled into believing that the deaths that occurred were from natural causes.

 Political

Until the 1950s' it was accepted practice in the NKVD to carry out any overseas missions using indigenous agents, non-Russians, as they were most concerned about removing themselves from the actual act of assassination.  Most countries in which they had an interest in those years, had quite large and well organised Communist Party organisations, in Australia, we had the CPA. It was from the ranks of such groups that potential assassins were recruited and trained in the use of sophisticated poisons and other weapons.

'Comments made by state security defectors Petr Deryabin and Yurv Rastvorov in 1954 about what the Soviets would or would not do are still of interest. Both believed that the Soviets would murder one of their officials on the verge of defecting if that were the only way of preventing the act. 

The same would apply to a Soviet official who had just defected if thereby state secrets could be preserved, and if they believed that killing him would not bring about a more adverse situation in terms of politics and propaganda than already existed. Deryabin and Rastvorov doubted, however, that the Soviets would murder an official who had been in non-Communist hands long enough to have been exploited for intelligence and propaganda purposes. 

While both granted that in particular cases the Soviets might go to any extreme, they both believed, generally speaking, that the adverse propaganda resulting from such an act would negate its original purpose. On the other hand, Khokhlov, who might have been in a better position to know, has stated without qualification that the Soviets would continue to assassinate defectors in the future. The threat of Soviet executive action against defectors is also considered a real one by Reino Hayhanen, who defected from the KGB in 1957. '

Poison Delivery

First, let's briefly consider the information provided by the CIA on poison delivery techniques.

There appears to be no consistency in the use of poisons by Soviet intelligence to cause disability or death, or in the repetitious use of any one drug. Chemicals which have been used in cases known or suspected to be Soviet-instigated include arsenic, potassium cyanide, scopolamine, and thallium. Other likely substances are atropine, barbiturates, chloral hydrate, paraldehyde and Warfarin. Combinations of two or more substances may also be used, which further complicates diagnosis and tracing.

As you would expect, the various poisons and techniques were developed over a period of time, thus tools used in the 50s had their origins in those that were used in the 40s. One such tool was a vapor generating canister:

'The weapon used to assassinate Rebet was a light-weight aluminum cylinder, 15 to 18 cm. long and approximately 3 cm in diameter, weighing about 200 grams. The cylinder was divided into three separate chambers, one of which contained liquid poison sealed hermetically into a plastic-type ampule container under low pressure. (At normal temperatures the poison would evaporate, disappearing without trace in about two minutes.) 

The three components could be assembled by means of a thread which allowed one part to screw into the other. The first component was the poison ampule portion, the front end of which had a fine metallic screen. The poison ampule fitted solidly against the walls of the metal cylinder. The center component contained a piston and a piston arm which extended into the third or activating component. The latter contained a spring-mounted activating arm which, when drawn back, armed the weapon. The releasing arm was appended to the third component at an angle, and was attached to the activating arm by means of a releasing catch. A small safety arm permitted the weapon to be placed in the safety position. The third component also contained a few grams of powder.

The maximum effective range of the weapon was about one-half meter; at one and one-half meters the effect of the vapors would be questionable; and at two and one-half meters, the vapors would be totally ineffective. (The assassin was instructed to fire the weapon only inches from the face.)

The weapon was activated as follows: The activating arm was pulled back and the safety released. The weapon was then activated. It was held in the palm of the hand in such a fashion that it fired when the user pressed the releasing arm towards the activating arm. The releasing arm, when pressed, acted upon the releasing catch, permitting the spring-held activating arm to fly forward against the small charge of powder. The exploding powder (which made a noise approximating the sound of a loud handclap with the hands cupped) drove the piston arm forward, causing the piston to strike against the poison ampule. The poison was thus driven out through the fine screen in the form of a liquid spray.'

Conclusion

Was a similar, but earlier developed, weapon to this canister deployed and used on the Somerton Man? How could that be if it was totally undetectable?

What of the strange case found by Ina Harvey the receptionist at the Strathmore Hotel, she thought it was some kind of needle, and this canister was only 3 cm in diameter?

I suggest that you refer back to the information that tells us that they would use a combination of poisons to further conceal the true nature of death. It had to look like a suicide and the death of the Somerton Man certainly meets that criteria plus the added confusion and uncertainty of just where and how he died.

In my view, this was the work of a professional team, supervised and trained by the NKVD but executed by someone within Australia. Our victim, I believe, was a Russian defector, a diplomat, one who failed to board the MV Pobeda in New York on July 30th, 1948. He was a senior consular official, a major in the NKVD and he was suspected of being about to defect according to Alexsander Vassiliev's notes. He used the name Pavel Ivanovich Fedosimov. We have only one, 1947, photograph of Pavel and his description, he is a very close match to the Somerton Man.

So, there we have it, a plausible and possible scenario that ties the Somerton Man, the CPA, the NKVD together and one that demonstrates the skills, tools, and techniques known to have been employed by the NKVD.

But what of the other players?  More on them in an upcoming post.

"ANY FOOL CAN COMMIT A MURDER BUT IT TAKES AN ARTIST TO COMMIT A GOOD NATURAL DEATH.."