Vadim Bakatin, last head of Soviet KGB, dies at 84

FILE PHOTO: Copies of Russian files gathered by the KGB on Lee Harvey Oswald and the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy were released by the U.S. government Aug. 5. 1999, in Washington, D.C. at the National Archives. Pictured here is a copy of an envelope containing a letter sent by Oswald to the Supreme Soviet asking for political asylum in the former U.S.S.R./File Photo

Vadim Bakatin, a liberal politician who briefly headed the Soviet KGB in the months leading up to the collapse of the USSR, has died at the age of 84, Russian state media said on Monday.

Bakatin was appointed by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to head the security service after its previous boss, Vladimir Kryuchkov, played a leading role in a failed coup against Gorbachev in August 1991.