I'm watching JFK: A President Betrayed right now, and I'm trying to understand how Bobby Kennedy could possibly know that Georgi Bolshakov (under guise as a journalist) was a Russian spy. I understand how he could be used as an effective backchannel, but I don't understand how Bobby could have known his true allegiance. And, if Bobby did know that Georgi was a spy (which he somehow did), why wouldn't the government take action against Georgi, especially during this tense time of the Cold War?
Apologies if my understanding is a bit off. I'm very new to learning about this period, and I tried doing some searching around, but I couldn't find an answer. And if anyone has related books/documentaries to recommend, please do! Thanks!
The Bolkshakov back-channel is rather poorly understood, and very poorly documented. The fact that these were private, secret meetings that happened between two men now dead, and that little to no archival evidence about their content has emerged yet makes it very difficult to know who know what, and when.
Frederick Kempe, who writes about the Bolshakov-Kennedy interactions extensively in his book on the Berlin Crisis, explains exactly why the historical record is so patchy:
It was an exchange that went almost entirely unreported and undocumented, an omission Robert Kennedy would later regret. He never took notes at the meetings, and reported on them directly and only orally to his brother. Thus the Bolshakov–Kennedy exchanges can be reconstructed only imperfectly through a dissatisfying Robert Kennedy oral history, Soviet records, Bolshakov’s partial recollections, and the memories of several others who were involved at one point or another.
JFK's press secretary, Pierre Salinger implied in his 1966 memoir, With Kennedy, that the CIA was aware of Bolshakov's intelligence ties:
Bolshakov had a flair for the conspiratorial — and why not? Editing the magazine USSR and serving as an interpreter for visiting Russian officials were but two of his chores in Washington. He was also, according to the CIA, a top agent for the KGB, the Soviet international spy network.
(Now, that assessment isn't technically accurate: Bolshakov was in fact a colonel in military intelligence, GRU, not the KGB. But in any case, it's not unreasonable to infer that if the CIA knew that Bolshakov was an intelligence officer, they were likely to have informed senior administration staff, to include both Salinger and RFK.)
Kempe also quotes an offhand remark from Kennedy to Bolshakov on their first meeting:
After a roll of thunder, Kennedy joked, "If a bolt of lightning kills me, the papers will report a Russian spy killed the president’s brother. It could trigger a war. Let’s get away from here."
Now, take from that what you will — it could easily be nothing at all, or it could be Kennedy subtly signalling that he knows that Bolshakov isn't really a journalist.
But if we assume for the sake of argument that Kennedy wasn't initially aware that Bolshakov was an intelligence officer, it's plausible that his status as a leading Soviet journalist/propagandist in the US, and his apparent presentation of himself as an emissary from the Kremlin are what persuaded Kennedy to continue talking to him. Per Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.:
Nominally the embassy press attache, Bolshakov conveyed the impression that he was in fact Khrushchev’s personal representative in Washington.
On the other hand, if Kennedy was made aware that Bolshakov was a spy, it's possible he made the calculation that the Soviet security organs might be a more direct, uncluttered line of communication with the Kremlin than the official diplomatic channels.
In either case: Bolshakov is also commonly described as a charismatic, gregarious personality, so we can't necessarily exclude the possibility that it was simple charm that landed him an introduction to RFK, or which led to an ongoing rapport.
The answer to your question about why the US government didn't take any action against him is simply that he was a 'legal' spy; he was employed by the Soviet embassy, and held diplomatic immunity.
Diplomatic-covered intelligence officers were occasionally expelled during the Cold War, but it a was relatively rare occurrence — and usually done to make a pretty clear statement. In 1971, following the defection of KGB major Oleg Lyalin, the British government expelled from the UK 105 Soviet intelligence personnel, 20% of the total Soviet diplomatic contingent. In historian Jonathan Haslam's words, this was a conscious decision to "seize this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to eject a sufficient number of Soviet intelligence officers to make counterintelligence manageable."
Not only was the expulsion of foreign diplomats a pretty aggressive gesture, but you also had to expect that they would be replaced with new, as-yet unidentified intelligence officers. In many cases, it was more constructive to simply observe and monitor the spies you had identified.
Sources