Leonid Vladimirovich Shebarshin (Леонид Владимирович Шебаршин, 1935-2012) was the last head of the KGB’s First Chief Directorate (FCD), its foreign intelligence arm. Trained in Oriental languages, he served in Pakistan and India and was KGB resident in Tehran during the Iranian revolution and its aftermath. He became deputy head of the FCD in 1987 and its head in 1989, succeeding Vladimir Kryuchkov when Kryuchkov became KGB chairman.

After the failed August 1991 coup, in which Kryuchkov was a leader, Shebarshin briefly served as acting KGB chairman before Vadim Bakatin was appointed. He resigned from the service in September 1991, shortly before the FCD was separated from the KGB as the Central Intelligence Service and then the SVR. In retirement he wrote memoirs and commentary. He was found dead of a gunshot wound in his Moscow apartment in March 2012; investigators described it as an apparent suicide.

Sources

• Andrew, Christopher, and Vasili Mitrokhin. The World Was Going Our Way: The KGB and the Battle for the Third World. Basic Books, 2005.
• NBC News with Reuters. Report on Shebarshin’s death. March 30, 2012.

Summary entry. A fuller, document-based profile is in preparation.