ESPIONAGE THE DEFECTOR

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00149R000600280021-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: November 11, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 20, 1999
• Sequence Number: 21
• Publication Date: February 21, 1964
• Content Type: MAGAZINE

Sanitized - Approved For Release: CIA-
964
CPYRGHT
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ESPIONAGE
The Defector
Nations, a stocky, dark-haired Russian
named Yuri Ivanovich Nosenko took
his scat among the other secretaries,
clerks, aides and technicians in the Sovi-
et delegation at the 17-nation disarma-
ment conference. But though Nosenko
was billeted with other low-ranking So-
viet staffers in Geneva's Hotel Rex, it
was obvious that lie enjoyed special
status. He roomed alone, spoke fluent
English, had a different work schedule
from that of his colleagues, often came
Twit- Mckly 111 nenevas a als cs
others were in. The reason was that, un-
known to his fellow delegates, Nosen-
ko's specialty was espionage. He was a
ranking officer in the K.G.B., the Soviet
agency that combines the functions of
the C.I.A. and F.B.I.
Fortnight ago, the day before he was
scheduled to return to Moscow, Nosen-
ko told colleagues.he was going off for
lunch at a downtown restaurant. When
he failed to return next morning, frantic
Soviet officials ordered all the remaining
Russians at the hotel into a delegation
compound and stripped Nosenko's room
of all his personal effects. They seemed
particularly agitated when they could
not find his valise. At last, the Russians
called in the Swiss police. In vain, the
cops checked Switzerland's hospitals,
morgues, hotels, railroad stations, air-
ports and border outposts. Nosenko had
totally vanished.
Last week the U.S. State Department
tersely reported that Nosenko had de-
fected to the West and was "somewhere
in the U.S." In fact, he was in Washing-
ton, where officials permitted Soviet and
i Swiss diplomats to interview him. Re-
futing Moscow's allegations of "improp-
er" U.S. behavior, Nosenko declared
that he had voluntarily decided not to
return to Russia.
U.S. officials plainly regarded Nosen-
ko, 36, as the biggest spy catch since
Colonel Qieg Penkovsky, the Soviet mil-
itary scientist who funneled military se-
crets to the West before being arrested
and executed by the Russians last year.
Nosenko apparently had brought with
!.him invaluable operational and organi-
zational details about the Soviet intelli-
gence network, and officials hinted that
his defection had already caused a
shake-up within the Russian espionage,
system.
FOIAb3b
Sanitized - Approved For Release : CIA-RDP75-00149R000600280021-6