A SPY'S STRANGE ODYSSEY LEAVES DOUBT IN WASHINGTON

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000201000002-0
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 23, 2012
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: November 10, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

M
A spy's strange odyssey leaves doubt in Washington
SCENE THREE: Santa Fe
N
M A
N
M
,
.
.
.
By Aaron Epstein` moonless night in late September.
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/02/27: CIA-RDP90-00965R000201000002-0
PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER
and Carl M. Cannon FBI agents are watching Howard's
Inquirer Washington Bureau home. But their quarry slips away
WASHINGTON - This is the story of and catches a plane, leaving behind
Y his wife, a 2-year-old son and a job
Vitaly Yurchenko, a major or minor KGB with the state l
i
l
t
H
eg
s
a
ure.
oward
agent who came to the United States by flies to Austria for a rendezvous with
means of deceit, defection or drugs. the Soviets, according to the FBI.
Once here, he spilled important or trio Later, he is spotted in Helsinki, Fin-
ial Soviet secrets to the CIA. And finally, land.
on Wednesday, he was flown back to his SCENE FOUR: Sometime in Octo-
homeland - due to lovesickness. loneli- ber. U.S. intelligence sources, none
ness or simply because his mission was of whom is named, confide to report-
over. ers that Yurchenko was nothing less
As in a carnival hallway of bent and than a deputy chairman of the KGB,
cracked mirrors, the truth is that no one chief of Soviet spy operations, per-
knows what the truth is. Except perhaps haps the most valuable Soviet defec-
Yurchenko himself, who isn't talking and tor in 50 years.
left was a biga big biggie
wouldn't be believed if he did. and "This
heThis's guy
one
Virtually all that the American public source t the KGB gleeful up," on
h
knows about the Yurchenko affair comes intelligence sate. expert Christopher British
from second- and third-hand sources, drew: about 220,000 A se-
-
many of whom are unnamed intelligence duce d West is worth Eerm a00-
sources trained to operate in a shadowy SCENE FIVE: Nov. secretaries."
underworld of intrigue and lies. v2, 1985. A drizzly
Information about Yurchencho's back- chill ill in in the Saturday he night
air. . An with all-a night ground, however, became available Fri -night bistro at
day when, in an uncommon move, the CIA the corner of Wisconsin and Dum-
issued a three-page biography of him, barton amid the colonial atmosphere
listing all his spying posts and responsi. of Washington's Georgetown sector.
bilities. The document gave no indication The name of the place is Au Pied de
of where the information was obtained or f Cochon. In English, that means pig's
how it was verified. foot, a prime appetizer. The decor is
The CIA document indicated that Yur- Gallic kitsch. The centerpiece is a
chenko would have been in a position to copper hog mounted on a black me-
provide a wide array of valuable informa- tallic weathervane.
Yurchenko and a CIA officer take a
Lion, and said that he had most recently table near the window, where a
supervised Soviet spying in North Amer- waiter named Etienne serves them.
ica and had worked on putting double Between them is a red carnation
agents into U.S. intelligence services. peering out of a Perrier bottle.
But as for the events that led up to his Yurchenko: What would you do if I
return to the Soviet Union, we are left got up and walked out? Would you
with the barest plot in the LaCarre man- shoot me?
ner, together with some educated specula- CIA officer: No, of course not. We
tion about what underlies the skeletal don't treat defectors that way.
scenario that unfolded as follows: Yurchenko (rising): If I'm not back
SCENE ONE: It is midsummer 1985. The in 15 minutes, don't blame yourself.
Vatican Museums in Rome, famed for (He walks out and vanishes into the
tapestries, apartments, grottoes. Raphaels, mist on Wisconsin Avenue.)
Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling and SCENE SIX: A rain-drenched twi-
Greco-Roman antiquities collected by the light two days later. A news confer-
popes. Yurchenko, 50, on assignment in ence in the Soviet compound on a
Rome and traveling under diplomatic hill in upper Georgetown. Yur?
cover, asks Vatican officials for sanctu- chenko, accompanied by grim-faced
ary. On Aug. 1, with the help of Italian Soviet officials, tells the reporters
authorities, Yurchenko is received as a that he had been drugged in Rome,
defector by the U.S. Embassy. abducted to the United States, and
SCENE TWO: Several weeks later. Yur- imprisoned, grilled and tortured for
chenko has been sent to Coventry, which months, then escaped in a moment of
CIA laxity. He says he longs to go
in his case is a magnificent home home.
near a lake in the 500-acre Coventry SCENE SEVEN: Wednesday, Nov. 6.
subdivision about 22 miles west of The White House. President Reagan,
Fredericksburg, Va., and a few miles speaking hours before Yurchenko
from a secret communications base, boards an Aeroflot airliner bound
His CIA guardians are "debriefing" for Moscow, tells reporters: "The in-
him. Yurchenko fingers former CIA formation he provided was not any-
agent Edward Howard, 33, as a Soviet thing new or sensational. It was
agent, possibly a onetime "mole." pretty much information already
known to the CIA."
0
In Washington, among the politi-
cians, the former spooks and people
at large, there are two basic theories,
each with many variations.
Either Yurchenko was a Soviet
agent from beginning to end, as-
signed to ferret out information
about CIA methods and knowledge,
spread misleading information, per-
haps to embarrass the United States
on the eve of a summit conference.
Or he was a genuine Soviet defec.
tor who, like half that breed,
changed his mind, being unable to
cope with the emotional strain of
being alone in an alien land.
Whichever way it was, the consen.
sus is that the CIA wound up with a
fateful of eggs.
"If this guy was legitimate, we han-
dled it badly. If he was a plant, we
handled it badly," said Sen. William
S. Cohen (R., Maine), a member of
the Senate Select Committee on Intel?
ligence.
One advocate of the double-agent
theory is a former CIA station chief
in several of the world's espionage
hot spots, who gave this view of
Yurchenko.
"Most likely, his whole so-called
defection was staged and manipulat.
ed from the very beginning. The
Soviets were ready for his reappear.
ance. Saturday night is Sunday morn.
ing in Moscow when this guy calls
in. How many people are in the ISo-
viet) embassy on Saturday night
Heady to take action?
"It seems to me that before the
Soviets considered putting him up
before the American press, they had
to be sure what he was going to say.
That's impossible to do on a Sunday
and a Monday" without preparation.
"There's a big bureaucratic struc.
ture in Moscow. Things have to be
coordinated, cleared and improved.
. That's a lot of decisiveness in a
hurry.... The speed with which they
acted suggests that, at a minimum,
they expected this guy to show up on
Saturday night."
Furthermore, he said, a bona fide
defector is under great stress when
he leaves his family, property and
heritage.
The typical defector's later deci-
sion to redefect is preceded by a new
round of tension and anguish. Usu-
ally, he becomes "very critical of his
surroundings and the way he is
treated. He has a lot of unfulfilled
demands," the former intelligence
agent said.
Contitlllet
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/02/27: CIA-RDP90-00965R000201000002-0
 Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/02/27: CIA-RDP90-00965R000201000002-0
q
"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.
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."
4
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/02/27: CIA-RDP90-00965R000201000002-0