U.S. BETRAYED 2 SOVIETS, INTERPRETER CONFIRMS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000201640003-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 23, 2012
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: February 21, 1987
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

S1 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/23: CIA-RDP90-00965R000201640003-9
A 10t .i?? WASHINGTON POST
21 February 1987
U.S. Betrayed 2 Soviets, Interpreter Confirms
Robert Kennedy Disclosed Action Involving Dissident Piters to Russian Pbet
BoD~
ington Post Staff Writer
In the_mid 1960s then-Sej Robert-F_
Kennedy (D-N Y) told Soviet poet YevLeM
Yevtushenko that U.S. mtelhgence gets .
bad betrayed the i entities o two dissmd _
Soviet writers to the KGB, a move that led
to their imprisonment, accor ing tote in-
terpreter who helped Kennedy an ev u-
s en co converse.
ev us en co described the incident in
Time magazine this month. He quoted Ken-
nedy as suggesting that the betrayal was
designed to create an incident that would
embarrass the Soviet Union-a counter-
weight to the propaganda difficulties the
United States encountered over the war in
Vietnam.
When the Yevtushenko article first ap-
peared early this month, numerous associ-
ates of the late Sen. Kennedy said in inter-
views that they had never heard him speak
of an American betrayal of the Soviet writ-
ers, and several expressed doubt about the
validity of Yevtushenko's story. But the in-
terpreter, Prof. Albert Todd of Queens Col-
lege, confirmed it in an interview.
The 1966 trial and imprisonment of the
two writers, Andrei Sinyavski and Yuli Dan-
iel, was the spark that ignited the political
dissent in the Soviet Union of the 1960s and
1970s. The trial created an uproar among
intellectuals in the West, including those
associated with the communists.
Daniel and Sinyavski were established
literary figures in Moscow at the time. Sev-
eral of their unpublished works were smug-
gled to the West where they were published
under the pen names of Abram Tertz and
Nikolai Arzhak. Sinyavski was sentenced to
seven years in prison and Daniel to five on
charges of spreading anti-Soviet propagan-
da.
Associates of Kennedy said the senator
considered Yevtushenko a friend. They con-
firmed that Kennedy had entertained him at
his New York apartment, as the poet re-
ported. But none was aware of the remarks
Yevtushenko attributed to Kennedy.
However,, Todd, the interpreter, said
the general substance [of Yevtushenko's
storyl is correct, absolutely, there is no
question about it."
In his Time magazine article, Yevtushen-
ko recalled that after the Sinyavski-Daniel
trial he was in New York and was a guest at
Kennedy's Manhattan apartment.
"To my surprise," Yevtushenko wrote,
Kennedy "invited me into his bathroom,
turned on the shower, and in a lowered
voice he said, 'I would like you to tell your
government that the names of Sinyavski
and Daniel were given to your agents by
our agents.'
"I was amazed and I asked him- why they
would have done that. He smiled at my na-
ivete and said, 'Because our people wanted
to take advantage of the situation, and your
people took the bait. Because of Vietnam,
our standing has begun to diminish at home
and abroad. We needed a propaganda coun-
terweight.'
"The cynical logic was shattering. There
is more to this story but the time has not
come to tell it," Yevtushenko said.
Todd, a professor in the Queens College
Department of Slavic Studies, said the "dis-
closure" mentioned by Yevtushenko "was
made" but "the details are a bit different.
There was discussion on the subject and
betrayal was mentioned. The sequence in
my memory is a bit different. This is all I
want to say at this moment."
A spokesman for the Central Intelligence
Agency had no comment.
Sinyavski, who is now living in Paris, was
traveling in Italy and could not be reached.
But an article in the New York Russian-lan-
guage daily Novoe Ruskoe Slovo by emigre
writer Vladimir Kozlovsky quoted his wife,
Maria, as saying last week in an interview
that "Yevtushenko told us about it eight
years ago in Paris."
The paper quoted Maria Sinyavski as say-
ing that the clandestine manuscripts of Dan-
iel and Sinyavski were smuggled out of the
Soviet Union by "outsiders," adding: "I know
full well that Sinyavski and Daniel were be-
trayed from here, from the West. I knew
that already in Moscow." The paper quoted
her as saying that Sinyavski and Daniel had
reached that conclusion on the basis of ma-
terial evidence presented at the trial which
included the sole copy of Daniel's manu-
script which was in the West. "There was
no copy of that manuscript in Russia," she
added.
Former Kennedy aides said the senator,
who had served as attorney gener in his
brother's administration, had good contacts
in the U.S. intelligence community. 'Ihey
wondered, however, about his motives in
reporting the alleged betrayal to the Rus-
sian poet and suggested that he may have
wanted to "warn" him of some unspecified
danger.
Yevtushenko became famous in the
1960s as a rebellious young poet, but he
long ago opted for a conventional literary
career in full cooperation with the author-
ities in Moscow.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/23: CIA-RDP90-00965R000201640003-9