As far back as the 1920s, and continuing into the 1980s, the KGB and its precursors routinely sent across to the West “dangles,” or false defectors, and then meticulously built out their bona fides. One technique they often used to accomplish this was to have the “defector” betray some of his spy colleagues in the field. For a regime that, during Stalin’s reign, routinely recalled and executed its own intelligence officers for no other cause than their “Western taint,” it was a small step to sacrifice a batch of their less-important operatives in the West if it helped cover the tracks or
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