A SPY'S STRANGE ODYSSEY LEAVES DOUBT IN WASHINGTON

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000201670017-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 19, 2010
• Sequence Number: 17
• Publication Date: November 10, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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7-1 -g- _ 10 November 1985
STAT
A spy's strange odyssey leaves doubt in Washington
By Aaron Epstein`
and Carl M. Cannot\
Inquirer Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON - This is the story of
Vitaly Yurchenko, a major or minor KGB
agent who came to the United States by
means of deceit, defection or drugs.
Once here, he spilled important or triv.
ial Soviet secrets to the CIA. And finally,
on Wednesday, he was flown back to his
homeland - due to lovesickness, loneli-
ness or simply because his mission was
over.
As in a carnival hallway of bent and
cracked mirrors, the truth is that no one
knows what the truth is. Except perhaps
Yurchenko himself, who isn't talking and
wouldn't be believed, if he did.
Virtually all that the American public
knows about the Yurchenko affair comes
from second- and third-hand sources,
many of whom are unnamed intelligence
sources trained to operate in a shadowy
underworld of intrigue and lies.
Information about Yurchencho's back-
ground, however, became available Fri-
day when, in an uncommon move, the CIA
issued a three-page biography of him,
listing all his spying posts and responsi-
bilities. The document gave no indication
of where the information was obtained or
how it was verified.
The CIA document indicated that Yur-
chenko would have been in a position to
provide a wide array of valuable informa-
tion, and said that he had most recently
supervised Soviet spying in North Amer-
ica and had worked on putting double
agents into U.S. intelligence services.
But as for the events that led up to his
return to the Soviet Union, we are left
with the barest plot in the LaCarre man-
ner, together with some educated specula-
tion about what underlies the skeletal
scenario that unfolded as follows:
SCENE ONE: It is midsummer 1985. The
Vatican Museums in Rome, famed for
tapestries, apartments, grottoes, Raphaels,
Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling and
Greco-Roman antiquities collected by the
popes. Yurchenko, 50, on assignment in
Rome and traveling under diplomatic
cover, asks Vatican officials for sanctu-
ary. On Aug. 1, with the help of Italian
authorities, Yurchenko is received as a
defector by the U.S. Embassy.
SCENE TWO: Several weeks later. Yur-
chenko has been sent to Coventry, which
in his case is a magnificent home
near a lake in the 500-acre Coventry
subdivision about 22 miles west of
Fredericksburg, Va., and a few miles
from a secret communications base.
His CIA guardians are "debriefing"
him. Yurchenko fingers former CIA
agent Edward Howard, 33, as a Soviet
agent, possibly a onetime "mole."
FBI agents are watching Howard's In Washington, among the politi.
home. But their quarry slips away cians, the former spooks and people
and catches a plane, leaving behind at large, there are two basic theories,
his wife, a 2-year-old son and a job each with many variations.
with the state legislature. Howard Either Yurchenko was a Soviet
flies to Austria for a rendezvous with agent from beginning to end, as-
the Soviets, according to the FBI. signed to ferret out information
Later, he is spotted in Helsinki, Fin- about CIA methods and knowledge,
land. spread misleading information, per-
SCENE FOUR: Sometime in Octo- haps to embarrass the United States
ber. U.S. intelligence sources, none on the eve of a summit conference.
of whom is named, confide to report. Or he was a genuine Soviet defec-
ers that Yurchenko was nothing less tor who, like half that breed,
than a deputy chairman of the KGB, changed his mind, being unable to
chief of Soviet spy operations, per- cope with the emotional strain of
haps the most valuable Soviet defec- being alone in an alien land.
tor in 50 years. Whichever way it was, the consen.
"This guy was a big, big biggie - sus is that the CIA wound up with a
and he's left the KGB all ... up," one faceful of eggs.
source says. Exults gleeful British "If this guy was legitimate, we han-
intelligence expert Christopher An- dled it badly. If he was a plant, we
drew: "He is worth about 20,000 se- handled it badly," said Sen. William
duced West German secretaries." S. Cohen (R., Maine), a member of
SCENE FIVE: Nov. 2, 1985. A drizzly the Senate Select Committee on Intel-
Saturday night with a mid-autumn ligence.
chill in the air. An all-night bistro at One advocate of the double-agent
the corner of Wisconsin and Dum- theory is a former CIA station chief
barton amid the colonial atmosphere in several of the world's espionage
of Washington's Georgetown sector. hot spots, who gave this view of
The name of the place is Au Pied de Yurchenko.
Cochon. In English, that means pig's "Most likely, his whole so-called
foot, a prime appetizer. The decor is defection was staged and manipulat.
Gallic kitsch. The centerpiece is a ed from the very beginning.. The
copper hog mounted on a black me- Soviets were ready for his reappear-
tallic weathervane. ance. Saturday night is Sunday morn-
Yurchenko and a CIA officer take a ing in Moscow when this guy calls
table near the window, where a in. How many people are in the [So.
waiter named Etienne serves them. vietl embassy on Saturday night
Between them is a red carnation heady to take action?
peering out of a Perrier bottle. "It seems to me that before the
Yurchenko: What would you do if I Soviets considered putting him up
got up and walked out? Would you before the American press, they had
shoot me? to be sure what he was going to say.
CIA officer: No, of course not. We That's impossible to do on a Sunday
don't treat defectors that way. and a Monday" without preparation.
Yurchenko (rising): If I'm not back "There's a big bureaucratic struc-
in 15 minutes, don't blame yourself. ture in Moscow. Things have to be
(He walks out and vanishes into the coordinated, cleared and improved.
mist on Wisconsin Avenue.) ... That's a lot of decisiveness in a
SCENE SIX: A rain-drenched twi- hurry.... The speed with which they
light two days later. A news confer- acted suggests that, at a minimum,
ence in the Soviet compound on a they expected this guy to show up on
hill in upper Georgetown. Yur- Saturday night."
chenko, accompanied by grim-faced Furthermore, he said, a bona fide
Soviet officials, tells the reporters defector is under great stress when
that he had been drugged in Rome, he leaves his family, property and
abducted to the United States, and heritage.
imprisoned, grilled and tortured for The typical defector's later deci-
months, then escaped in a moment of sion to redefect is preceded by a new
CIA laxity. He says he longs to go round of tension and anguish. Usu-
home. ally, he becomes "very critical of his
SCENE SEVEN: Wednesday, Nov. 6. surroundings and the way he is
The White House. President Reagan, treated. He has a lot of unfulfilled
speaking hours before Yurchenko demands," the former intelligence
boards an Aeroflot airliner bound agent said.
for Moscow, tells reporters: "The in-
formation he provided was not any.
thing new or sensational. 'It was
pretty much information already
known to the CIA."
Continuer!
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"But those signs were undetected,
or he would not have been taken to
dinner.... Normally ... U.S. authori-
ties deliver la double defectorl to his
own officials by prearrangement."
Yurchenko's self-assured manner
at the Nov. 4 news conference in the
Soviet compound was another factor
in leading some observers to con-
clude that he was a make-believe
defector.
"I was impressed by the way he
talked to the Soviets," a former intel-
ligence operative said. "He shushed
them. He said what he wanted to say.
You don't do that if you're a man
facing punishment."
But many knowledgeable sources
reject that double-agent theory, ad-
hering instead to the notion that
Yurchenko was a true defector who
was mishandled by the CIA, became
increasingly homesick and suffered
severe depression when his love af-
fair with a Soviet woman in Canada
soured - possibly with assistance
from his masters at the KGB.
Sen. David Durenberger (R.,
Minn.), chairman of the Senate Intel-
ligence Committee, is a leading pro-
ponent of that theory.
He said, based on his discussions
with CIA officials, including director
William Casey, that Yurchenko, after
furnishing "very valuable" informa.
tion to U.S. authorities, went "into a
blue funk" for six weeks after his
love affair ended, and he decided to
bail out.
?
According to some sources, Yur-
chenko had believed that the woman
he loved, the wife of a Soviet diplo-
mat in Ottawa, would leave her hus-
band and join him in the United
States. But she refused, possibly be-
cause the Soviets had "gotten to her,"
Senate Intelligence Committee
sources said.
The CIA, realizing it had a shaky
man on its hands, agreed to escort
him to Canada so he could appeal to
her in person. Committee sources
confirmed that the trip took place,
with the assistance of Canadian
agents, about seven weeks ago.
Again, she refused to go away with
him.
Abandoned by his beloved, lacking
a bond of friendship with anyone
around him, Yurchenko had "lost all
hope," said Yelena Mitrokhina, who
was a worker at the Soviet Embassy
here when she defected in 1978.
(Incidentally, Yurchenko's girl-
friend is not the Russian woman who
died in a 27-story fall in Toronto last
week, Canadian and U.S. officials
said.)
Others, however, speculated that
the Soviets threatened to harm Yur-
chenko's 16-year-old son unless he
were to return and accuse the United
States of having terrorized him for
months.
Durenberger and others suggested
that the CIA had bungled the Yur-
chenko operation at several points.
For example, Durenberger said, the
CIA had recognized the psychologi-
cal warning signs that suggested that
Yurchenko was a prime candidate
for double defection. But on Nov. 2,
his CIA "handlers" were off duty,
leaving him in the hands of an inex-
perienced man who knew nothing of
Yurchenko's depression, the intelli-
gence committee chairman said.
There is another argument ad-
vanced by those who believe Yur-
"hanko was a real defector.
"My sense is that if it was a set-up,
he would have waited longer before
revealing himself," a former U.S. in-
telligence official said. "He came out
too soon. He'd want to stay around to
learn more about how we function
before he went back.
"He may have got cold feet because
some people on the inside of the CIA
began to doubt him and view him as
a fake. He may have seen that he
wasn't going to be set up for life."
Now that the Soviet mystery man is
back in Moscow - and, according to
unconfirmed reports, the woman he
loves was flown there last week, too
- has he come in from the cold'or
into the deep freeze?
Again, the experts split. They ex-
pect the Soviets to wring all the pro-
paganda value possible out of him.
Maybe he'll be promoted, the double
agent theorists say.
Mitrokhina, who has lived in
Washington since her defection, said
that if he is a double'defector, "he
will not have his job or any job.",
George Carver, a former U.S. intelli-1
gence official, predicted a grimmer
future. "He'll be taken to Lubyanka,"
he said, referring to a prison in Mos-
cow, "and, if he's lucky, a bullet will
be put in the base of his skull."
In Washington, meanwhile, capi-
talism is alive and well. At Au Pied
de Cochon, they're serving a new
dish: "Moskovski borscht."
STAT
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