Nikolai Khokhlov

Nikolai Evgenievich Khokhlov (Cyrillic: Николай Евгеньевич Хохлов) (7 June 1922, Nizhny Novgorod - September 2007 San Bernardino, California) was a KGB officer, who defected to the United States in 1954. He testified about KGB activities. The KGB unsuccessfully tried to kill him using poison.

Khokhlov's parents divorced when he was very young. He was not well-acquainted with his father, who later served as a commissar in the Red Army. During the Battle for Moscow, the elder Khokhlov was transferred to a penal battalion, because he had made unfavourable remarks about Joseph Stalin. Khokhlov's father died in the battalion.

His stepfather, a lawyer, volunteered to defend Moscow in 1941 and died in action almost immediately. As Khokhlov later put it, "The army needed cannon fodder".

In October 1941, Khokhlov, then 19 years old, was member of an NKVD quartet who were trained to commit a spectacular attack against Nazi officers during their victory celebration in the occupied Moscow. The mastermind behind the plan was Mikhail Maklyarskiy, a senior NKVD official. The four young agents would have played a vaudeville group on the celebration. Khokhlov was chosen for his role on his whistling abilities. During the training, he had his first great romance with fellow agent, singer Tasya Ignatova. After the German retreat from the outskirts of Moscow, the deadly show was cancelled.

Nikolai Khokhlov was a member of a successful military unit that fought behind the enemy lines during World War II. He was disguised as a Nazi officer after parachuting into German-occupied Belarus. He played a part in the assassination of Wilhelm Kube, the Nazi Gauleiter of Belarus. After the war, Khokhlov became the prototype for the main character in a 1947 Soviet film, Feat of a Scout ("Подвиг разведчика").

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