Iosif Grigulevich

Iosif Romualdovich Grigulevich (Russian: Иосиф Ромуальдович Григулевич; Lithuanian: Josifas Romualdovičius Grigulevičius; May 5, 1913 – June 2, 1988) was a Soviet secret police (NKVD) operative active between 1937 and 1953, when he played a role in assassination plots against Communist and Bolshevik individuals who were not loyal to Joseph Stalin. This included the murders of claimed and actual Trotskyists during the Spanish Civil War, most notably Andreu Nin, and an initial, unsuccessful assassination attempt against Leon Trotsky in Mexico City. Under an assumed identity as Teodoro B. Castro, a wealthy Costa Rican expatriate living in Rome, Grigulevich served as the ambassador of the Republic of Costa Rica to both Italy and Yugoslavia (1952–1954). He was tasked by the NKVD with the assassination of Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito, but the mission was aborted following Stalin's death in 1953.

Recalled to Moscow, Grigulevich retired from his career as a spy (the details of which would remain secret until after his death) and established himself as a professional historian. He was employed as a research fellow at the Institute of Ethnography of the Soviet Academy of Sciences and published many books and articles on the history of Latin America and on the modern Roman Catholic Church. In 1979 he was elected as a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences. Writing under the pen-name I. Lavretsky (after his mother's maiden name) he published several bestselling biographies of Latin American revolutionaries, including Che Guevara.