WHAT DID SHADRIN TAKE WITH HIM IN FROM THE COLD

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP81M00980R002000100023-4
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 15, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 1, 2004
• Sequence Number: 23
• Publication Date: May 22, 1978
• Content Type: NSPR

ARTICLE APPEARED THE BALTIMORE SUN
ON PAGE_?.N 64-Approved For Release 2a /0W IA-RDP81 M00980R002000100.023-4
What Did Take with i
in from the Cold?\
Washington.
ONE of the most mysterious spy
stories circulating around here
is that of Nikolai Shadrin, the Soviet
naval officer who defected to the
By Stanley Karnow
United States in 1959 and evaporated
in Vienna nearly three years ago.
The general assumption is that
Shadrin, who had become a double
agent, was abducted by the Russians
after they learned he was operating
for the Central Intelligence Agency
while pretending to work for the
KGB, the Soviet secret service.
That assumption prompted Presi-
dent Ford to query Leonid Brszhnev,
the Soviet Communist party leader,
for information on Shadrin, and Hen-
ry Kissinger, when secretary of state,
also raised the case with Andrei Gro-
myko, the Russian foreign minister.
Both Mr. Ford and ' Mr. Kissinger
'drew blanks.
But sources familiar with the af-
fair now submit that Shadrin was
really a Communist agent all along,
and though some senior CIA officia6
had good reason to suspect him. oth-
ers insisted on pushing through his 1
clearance because he served their
own purposes.
As these sources tell it, warnings
about Shadrin were issued on at least
two separate occasions by the CIA's
counterintelligence section, which
had interrogated him intensively But
the warnings were either ignored or
overruled by the agency's Soviet Bloc
department, which desperately need-
ed data and thus wanted to believe
that Shadrin could be trusted.
These disclosures suggest that ele-
ments inside the CIA are often so
anxious to score points that they are
willing to court security. risks. That
the CIA has frequently suffered from
an excess of zeal has also been seen in
its eagerness to engage in assassina-
tion plots and other dubious ven-
tures.
This thesis is disputed by other in-
formants with intimate CIA connec-
tions. They assert that Shadrin would
never have been cleared by the agen-
cy had, there been misgivings about
him. In their estimation, Shadrin was
a genuine defector who was overex-
posed by the CIA and ended up being
trapped by the Russians.
Substantiation- for this thesis is
contained in the report the other day
that Shadrin had been reluctant to
accept the double agent assignment,
but was persuaded by the CIA to take
it in order to bolster the position of a
real KGB operative who sought to
work secretly on behalf of the United
'Jtates.
Whatever the truth in all this, it is
clear that the Shadrin business is still
a focus of enormous controversy, and
is likely to remain so until harder ev-
idence is forthcoming-which may be
never. In the absence of such evi-
dence, I think it is worthwhile to pre-
sent a new version of the story, even
though it cannot be entirely validat-
ed. . ,
Shadrin, whose name was original-
ly Nikolai F. Artamonov, fled from
Poland to Sweden in June, 1959, ac-
companied by a young Polish woman
who later became his wife. They were
flown by the CIA to West Germany,
and were grilled at length by Rus-
sian-speaking agency interrogators.
Sources here rbcall that Shadrin
failed the lie-detector tests given him
at the time. As a result, counterintel-
ligence specialists expressed doubts
about his credibility and even cau-
tioned that he might be a Soviet
"plant."
Nevertheless, he was transferred
to Washington and not long after-
ward put to work in the Office of Na-
val Intelligence as an evaluator of So-
viet naval data.
But doubts persisted and in 1964,
the sources recollect, Shadrin was
again subjected to interrogations and
lie-detector tests. Again it was con-
cluded that he was untrustworthy.
Once again, though, that judgment,
was rejected. Shadrin not only con-
tinued at his post. but was soon shift-
ed to the Defense Intelligence Agen-
cy, where he translated Russian mili-
tary literature.
It was in the summer of 1966 that
Shadrin became a double agent. The
standard version of his metamorpho-
sis is that he was contacted by the
K(;B with an offer to spy for Mos-
cow, reported the approach to the.
Federal Bureau of Investigation, and
was told to play the game. Sources
who have monitored him for years,
however, have a different account.
They say the KGB, which was
really employing Shadrin, was then
beginning-to worry about his safety.
Therefore, the KGB devised the
"double agent" ruse with two motives
in mind. -
First, by. volunteering to deceive
the KGB by covertly serving U. S. in-
telligence, Shadrin would restore the
faith that his CIA mentors had initi-
ally placed in him.
Moreover, by revealing the KGB
offer to the FBI, which would hence-
forth make him its protege, he was
reinforcing his bureaucratic protec-
tion within the American intelligence
community and might eventually be
able to play one agency off against
another.
One major question, of course, is
why the KGB went to all this trouble, i
since Shadrin was never privy to the
most' classified material. But accord- I
ing to sources who tracked him, it
was enough that he mingled with
high Pentagon officers and perhaps
picked up bits of information. Shad-
tin's prominent friends included Ad-.
miral Rufus L. Taylor, the director of
naval intelligence.
CONY 19U~D
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size, the KGB is a bureaucracy whose
busses regard it as quite an achieve-
ment to penetrate one of their men
deep into the enemy camp, even if he
produces little of value.
In his purported pose as double
agent, Shadrin went through the mo-
tions of encountering his KGB coun-
terparts in Washington and in such
cities abroad as Montreal and Vien-
na. The guess is that, after almost a
decade of shadowy maneuvers, he de.
cided to return home-or "come in
from the cold," as spies would put it. !
interestingly enough, it was h
rather than the CIA or FBI who pro-
posed to meet the.KGB in Vienna in
late . 1975-the rendezvous from
which he vanished. Vienna is only a'
short drive from the Czechoslovak-,
frontier, and hardly the spot he
would have selected had he consi"`
dered himself in danger of a KGB"-
kidnaping.
The Shadrin mystery has inspired
other interpretations, including the],
official Kremlin theory that he was"
murdered by the CIA as he attempt.
ed to go back to the Soviet Union In
the view of some experts, the Fluff:',
sians made the extraordinary move'ot-~
publishing their account in order to
obfuscate the case.
It is impossible, as I have said, to
document the version that Shadri'i
was secretly representing the KGB.,It
is equally impossible,, however, to
verify the tale that he was snatched"
away by Soviet agents.
Plainly. though, the CIA bungled
--either by failing to check out his
bona fides thoroughly or by failing to-'
prevent his abduction. But then, it
hasn't been the first time that the;
CIA has bungled.
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