The Soviet secret police tried for years to silence Russia's most famous living writer by framing him in criminal plots. The KGB, for example, attempted to sell to Western publishers, supposedly at Alexander Solzhenitsyn's own request, manuscripts that could have led to his imprisonment on charges of anti-Soviet propaganda.
The KGB worked in such shadowy ways that no one, least of all Solzhenitsyn, was able to establish the secret police's role in these conspiracies. Since his expulsion from the Soviet Union last February, the writer has uncovered one such KGB plot that could have led to his arrest on treason charges. In the following article written expressly for TIME—the first he has published since coming to the West—Solzhenitsyn provides a detailed example of how the secret police can threaten the lives of Soviet dissidents.
In 1972 the KGB initiated a correspondence in my name with Vassili Orekhov, the director of the Russian National Association. It is a small émigré organization based in Brussels that deals with czarist military history. The KGB devised letters in which my handwriting was forged. At first the letters contained only innocent requests for information about the first World War. Then followed a suggestion, purportedly from me, that Orekhov come to Prague or send a representative.
At first the KGB mailed these false letters from Prague, using the return address of the well-known author and psychiatrist Josef Nesvadba. Later they supposedly were sent by a certain Ottokar Gorsky, whose home address was given as 1, Revolution Street, the location of the Czechoslovak airline and tourist offices. But Gorsky's telephone number indicated that he lived in another district—which happens to be the location both of the Soviet embassy and the Czechoslovak secret police.
I do not know how widespread this provocation was or how it would have gone if I had not been expelled from the Soviet Union. Apparently the aim was to arrest some Russian emigres from the West who were visiting Prague and to construct around them a criminal case that would have demonstrated that I had links with emigre organizations. "Links with the outside" is a beloved theme song of Soviet propaganda.
Precisely because this case is founded upon an imitation of handwriting and could be repeated in the future, I decided to publish the following documents. The first is a comparison of my genuine handwriting with a sample from a forged letter. The handwriting is not an exact copy, but the similarities can be deceiving. It is obvious that the KGB had at its disposal many more samples of my handwriting and signature in the letters that passed through the censor, among them my return address, which they accurately reproduced. They were equally skilled at forging my signature.
It can be expected that these machinations will be used again by Soviet propaganda in the present campaign to falsify my past and to discredit me. After my expulsion, I was officially declared to be a nonperson. Nonetheless, the KGB in no way has reduced its activity against me and my friends.