SCHARANSKY IS RELEASED IN BERLIN

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000606090007-5
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 27, 2010
• Sequence Number: 7
• Publication Date: February 12, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Approved For Release 2010/08/27: CIA-RDP9O-00552ROO0606090007-5
TAP
Scharansky
Is Released
In Berlin
Half an Hour Later,
East and West Swap
8 Jailed as Spies
By William Drozdiak
Wiehn gtan Post Foreign Service
WEST BERLIN, Feb. 11-So-
viet dissident Anatoly Scharansky
was freed today from nine years in
captivity as part of an East-West
prisoner swap that culminated
months of secret bartering and a
global crusade by a wife who had
not seen him since the day after
their wedding in 1974.
The 38-year-old computer pro-
grammer, who became a symbol for
Soviet human rights activists and
fellow Jews seeking to emigrate to
Israel, was released at 11 a.m. local
time to the custody of U.S. and
West German officials at the
Glienicke Bridge checkpoint divid-
ing West Berlin from East Ger-
many.
About 30 minutes after
Scharansky crossed the snow-
dusted steel span, ei accu or
Cgayicted spies-five detained in
the West and three in the East-
were exchanged to complete one of
the most highly pu ict spy
trades in recent years.
The United States insisted upon
the distinction in timing to under-
score its contention that
Scharansky never served as a west-
ern agent. He was arrested in 1977
on charges of working for the Cen-
tral Intelligence Agenc and sen-
tenced later to 13 years in prison.
Too king fit and exhilarated e-
spite his arduous years of detention
in a labor camp, Scharansky strolled
briskly in the company of U.S. Am-
bassador to Bonn Richard R. Burt to
a waiting limousine. His short frame
was draped in a bulky overcoat. He
showed no sign of ill health as he
smiled and waved while being driven
to Tempelhof military airfield.
WASHINGTON POST
12 February 1986
There Scharansky was given a
basket of fruit and wine by Burt's
wife, Gahl, according to U.S. offi-
cials,* who said he quickly opened
the basket and began eating the
strawberries, marveling at their
size and freshness.
After changing aircraft because
of technical problems caused by fro-
zen brakes, Scharansky was flown
out of Berlin aboard a U.S. military
plane to Frankfurt to be reunited
with his wife Avital, who emigrated
to Israel in 1974 and has conducted
a tireless campaign to win his free-
dom.
The couple later continued their
journey to Tel Aviv, where Anatoly
responded in halting Hebrew to an
emotional welcome.
Scharansky told U.S, officials he
was removed from the labor camp a
month ago and fed well before his
release. He was quoted as saying
that when Soviet authorities told
him the other day he was being ex-
changed as a spv he laughed pro-
fusely out of delight and incredulity
oyer his fate.
The exchange, witnessed by hun-
dreds of journalists who had staked
out the bridge for more than a week,
was brokered largely by the U.S. em-
bassies in Bonn and East Berlin and
Wolfgang Vogel, an East German
lawyer with close ties to the commu-
nist leadership in his own country,
and the Soviet Union.
An agreement on a prisoner swap
involving Scharansky was nearly
concluded last fall, prior to the So-
viet-U.S. summit meeting at Gene-
va in November, but Moscow
backed out inexplicably at the last
moment, according to informed
sources close to the negotiations.
After the summit, Vogel con-
tacted U.S. and West German of-
ficials and said the Soviet Union no
longer held any reservations about
an exchange and was prepared to
expedite negotiations. U.S. and
West German officials said they be-
lieve the Kremlin wanted to resolve
the case, which had evolved into an
embarrassing symbol of human
rights abuses, before the Soviet
Communist Party congress Feb. 25.
The Soviet leadership's desire to
defuse world opinion over
Scharansky's fate may also have
helped to temper demands for sev-
eral highly sought agents still de-
tained in West Germany. Bonn
agreed to turn over three Soviet
Bloc agents in the deal, but they
were regarded as "prize catches,"
according to West German officials.
President Reagan expressed his
warm appreciation to West German
Chancellor Helmut Kohl for Bonn's
"substantial contribution" in securing
Scharansky's release. Sources close
to Kohl said he was motivated not
only to resolve an important human
rights issue, but to enhance relations
between Moscow and Washington in
the hope that this will improve the
two Germanys' ties.
The final arrangements were
nearly scuttled when news of the im-
pending exchange appeared 10 days
ago in the West German mass-cir-
culation daily Bild. But U.S. officials
said they rebuffed calls for a change
of venue and other last-minute alter-
ations, insisting that the exchange
should take place on the agreed date
before the press.
The separation of the two release
ceremonies was considered a dip-
lomatic victory for the United
States, which adamantly refused to
link Scharansky in any way with the
other eight convicted or accused
spies. Washington has always de-
nounced Moscow's imprisonment of
Scharansky as unjust punishment
for his human rights activities.
Both Reagan and Kohl, in a joint
statement, welcomed his release as
"a prisoner of conscience."
"Anatoly Scharansky was never
an agent of any kind of the U.S. gov-
ernment, despite the trumped-up
evidence which the Soviet Union
presented against him," Ed Harper,
a spokesman for the U.S. Mission in
Berlin, told reporters at the bridge.
"The terms of his release in no way
change that basic fact," he added.
Once Scharansky departed from
the drab green Glienicke ridge,
vans and buses maneuvered into po-
sition to conclude the swap of the
eight alleged spies. Numerous East-
West swaps have taken place at the
bridge, including the exchange in
1962 of downed U2 pilot rands
Gary Powers for the Soviet master
spy Rudolf Abel.
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At Potsdam on the eastern side
of the bridge, two Germans and a
Czechoslovak were escorted to the
white dividing line in the middle of
the span to board a waiting bus
the trip to the West.
Bonn government officials said
the three men were: Wolf Georg
Frohn, 41, an Fast German; Jaro-
slav Javorsky, 38, a Czechoslovak,
and Dietrich Nistroy, 50, a West
German.
T le five released by the West in-
cluded two 'ailed in the United
States: Karl F. Koecher 52 a
Czechoslovak, and his wife Hana.
West German released three al-
leged a ient5 Soviet YSySS2 em-
1. akov Pole Jerzy. Kaczmarek, and
East German Detlef Sharfenorth.
North
Approved For Release 2010/08/27: CIA-RDP90-00552R000606090007-5