KGB MAY HAVE TAKEN SOVIET WRITER OUT OF LONDON, EX-CIA DIRECTOR SAYS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000100580006-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 24, 2010
• Sequence Number: 6
• Publication Date: September 20, 1984
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/24: CIA-RDP90-00552R000100580006-3
ARTICLE APPEARED PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER
ON PAGE 20 September 1984
out of Landon, ex-CIA director says'"'
KGB may have taken Soviet writer
By Ed Blanche "from now on has no future ahead of
Associated Press L t.- TY_
LONDON - Former CIA Director employed in his old job. I think he's
Stansfield Turner said yesterday lucky if he avoids a prison camp in
a Soviet journalist who spent the las Siberia."
year in Britain and then surfaced in Four days after Bitov vanished
Moscow on Tuesday accusing ' the from his London apartment last
British of ki na in m ma ave month, his car was found parked
been smugg rom ndon by the near the Soviet Embassy in London.
KGB. "He was settling in very nicely to
-'I urner said journalist Oleg Bitov, quite an expensive lifestyle," said a
who vanished from his London hide? n is ante igence source, who
out Aug. 16 and turned up Tuesday in spoke on condition of anonymity.
Moscow at a news conference, was u he missed is wile and daugh-
probably forced to make the accusa- ter very much." Bitov's wife and
tions against the British "or die." daughter were in the Soviet Union
"I'm sure they (the KGB) would . when Bitov disappeared in Italy.
have used torture too, if necessary, "It seems likely that he was lured.
to get him to make his television back to M oscow. His press confer.
appearance," Turner said in a tele- ence a a dual purpose - to-black
phone interview from the ' United en our intelligence service and to
States with Independent Radio News, discourage potential Soviet defec-
a network that feeds commercial ra- tors," the British intelligence source
dio stations in Britain. The interview said.
was broadcast on Capitol Radio in The source declined to say how the
London. return of Bitov, viewed as a "signifi.
The British government has said - cant defector" because of his links
that Bitov had defected and been with top officials in Moscow, would
granted asylum in Britain after he affect Britain's chilly relations with
disappeared on Sept. 9, 1983, while the Soviet Union.
covering the Venice Film Festival. Foreign Secretary Sir Geoffrey
Britain protested strongly to Moscow Howe was scheduled to Meet Soviet
after Bitov, 52, denied Tuesday that Foreign Minister Andrei A. Gromyko
he had defected willingly. A Home
Office statement branded Bitov's as-
sertion that he was snatched in Ven-
ice by British agents as "absurd and
offensive."
Turner said, 'I would by no means
rule out his having been drugged,
locked up in some kind of a crate and
taken out of Great, Britain surrepti-
"We all know that you've had a
case of -that with a different country
recently. The Soviets would have
been much more skillful in clearing,
it up."
Turner was referring to an abor-
tive attempt to smuggle former Nige-
rian Transport Minister Umaru
Dikko, drugged, out of Britain in a.
crate July 5. A Nigerian and three
Israelis have been charged with kid-
napping him.
Turner said Bitov, former foreign
cultural editor of Moscow's Litera-
turnaya Gazeta, or Literary Gazette,
later this month in New York at the
U.N. General Assembly. Gromyko
also has an invitation to visit London
next year.
The source dismissed the possibili-
ty that Bitov had been placed as a spy
in the West by the KGB, the Soviet
secret police and intelligence agen.
cy
In Moscow, the gazette for which
Bitov worked devoted a full page
yesterday to his reappearance there
and said Bitov soon would reveal
more. It said Bitov would return to
work for the gazette, although he
may not regain the high post of for-
eign culture editor with the right to
travel abroad.
In Britain, the Daily Mail said that
Bitov identified seven alleged Brit?
ish operatives and two safe houses in
London and that his return to Mos-
cow had caused "considerable con-
sternation to British intelligence."
Duff Hart-Davis, a writer with the
Sunday Telegraph, edited some of
the anti-Soviet articles Bitov had
written when he was in Britain.
Hart-Davis said, "One of his favorite
phrases concerned 'the unmatchable
pleasure' of being free. His friends
... feel certain that he was abducted
or at the very least enticed."
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/24: CIA-RDP90-00552R000100580006-3