Lars-Emil Johansen has dedicated over half a century to advocating for Greenland and its interests. Documents now confirm links between the Soviet spy service and the former prime minister since the 1970s. In the KGB documents, he is referred to as a «useful contact».
Lars-Emil Johansen was Greenland's national executive chairman (prime minister) in the period 1991–1997 and Greenlandic parliament (Inatsisartut) speaker in 2013–2018. Photo: Karen Motzfeldt
On Monday morning, Ekstra Bladet Hemmelige dokumenter: Toppolitiker hvervet af KGB – Ekstra Bladet revealed that there are numerous indications that Lars-Emil Johansen has been in communication with the Soviet spy service since the 1970s.
This is shown by previously classified KGB documents. The so-called Mitrokhin archive, which Ekstra Bladet has gained access to at the Churchill Archives Center in Cambridge. The documents indicate that he was recruited in 1980.
According to Ekstra Bladet, a 92-page folder contains detailed descriptions of various KGB operations. It references Lars-Emil Johansen and his code name, 'Manas'.
The new information is consistent with announcements from the Danish PET, which in 2009 could tell that the KGB increased its interest in Greenland and Greenlandic politicians throughout the 1970s.
During this same period, Lars-Emil Johansen was a member of the Folketing representing the Siumut (Forward) Party.
He has confirmed to Kalaallit Nunaata Radioa (KNR) that he had contact with individuals from the Soviet Union's embassy during the 1970s and 1980s. These included KGB officer Vladimir Minin. According to Lars-Emil Johansen, Mr. Minin introduced himself as press secretary when they first met at a reception held at the Soviet embassy.
I was contacted by the press secretary for the Soviet embassy, Vladimir Minin, who wanted to meet with me and hear more about Home Rule, which was new at the time, Lars-Emil Johansen told KNR.
I didn't know it was the KGB. After all, it was a common assumption that there were probably KGB employees. Commonly, ordinary embassy officials were called KGB agents. So I thought it was a likely risk that it could be, he said and continued:
But I was contacted by an embassy official who was press secretary, and it was with that knowledge that I reacted to him.
In the PET commission from 2009, the Soviet defector Oleg Gordievsky describes how he initiated contact with the Greenlandic politician 'Manas'.
According to Gordievsky, the KGB residency in Copenhagen began to cultivate the Greenlandic politician in 1976. This one was under so-called deep study in 1977, and the KGB judged that he contained 'the right elements' to become a useful contact: leftist, representative of a national minority, the commission said.
Lars-Emil Johansen also appears in other PET documents.
During a wiretapping of the Soviet embassy in 1980, the Danish intelligence service recorded a conversation between the former chairman of the national government and the KGB officer Minin.
And just as in the Mitrokhin archive, it also appears from the commission report that Lars-Emil Johansen was recruited in 1980.
'He did not receive money for his services, but was rewarded in another way. According to the same source, he should have been recruited in 1980, and in 1982 he should have become a confidential contact. His KGB code name was 'Manas,' the commission said.
KNR has also asked for a comment from Siumut's current chairman Erik Jensen. He has not wanted to appear for an interview, but gave a written answer:
"Siumut has noticed the serious accusations made by a Danish media about Lars Emil Johansen's alleged connections to the KGB. However, Siumut cannot comment further until we have received more concrete and documented information."
When Ekstra Bladet contacted Lars-Emil Johansen, he was confused by the fact that, according to a KGB archive, he should have been recruited by the intelligence service in 1980.
I am very shocked that I am perceived as recruited. I have never heard of that before, and I have never before heard of my name being 'Manas.
I did not have any frequent contact with the Russians then. I have been invited to lunches with them, which I agreed to. But it was no different from the other embassies I was in contact with at the time.
But can you understand that people think that you have been in confidential contact and recruited by the KGB, when it is written in black and white?
Yes, but if these lunches are to be recruited, then I must have been. But it has absolutely not occurred to me. So Greenland's home rule was then a new thing, and there was interest at various embassies, he said and continued:
I perceived it as an increasing interest in the fact that Greenland had begun to have its own independent profile, and therefore people began to take an interest in us. But I was always very careful and didn't have any special knowledge.
The astute reader will immediately notice that there is a very big difference between a "useful contact" and a "recruited agent", who allegedly received some unspecified reward for his work for foreign intelligence. Furthermore, it is evident that the Danish journalists lacked professionalism and a critical approach to their sources, resulting in flawed conclusions and a lack of logical coherence in their analysis.
The Mitrokhin archive was available to MI6 since 1991, for full 32 years, its volume is approximately 25,000 pages, i.e., 50 volumes of 500 pages each, which would fit in a small home cabinet. The speed of reading by MI6 agents of the texts, important for counter-intelligence, which in 1991 the CIA considered fake, seems to be about 2 pages per day, much less than the reading speed of first-graders. Why should MI6 wait 32 years to expose a Soviet agent?
There are thousands of books about Soviet intelligence, mostly in English. Experts are well-versed in the methods, techniques, and distinctive characteristics of the foreign work. For technical reasons, the vast majority of foreign contacts of the Soviet special services were given pseudonyms. They were mainly "useful contacts", with a smaller number designated as "agents of influence." In rare instances, some were identified as recruited agents who received some form of remuneration for their work.
An objective observer will immediately notice that this case is a deliberate attempt to discredit not only a prominent Greenlandic politician but also the entire political elite and institutions of this former colony of Denmark, which may hold a referendum on its independence in the future. The party responsible for this fake will remain anonymous, as has usually been the case.
Based on: Kalaallit Nunaata Radioa, Ekstra Bladet
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