KGB DEFECTOR WANTS TO GO HOME AGAIN

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Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 
CIA-RDP90-00965R000302330023-9
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RIFPUB
Original Classification: 
K
Document Page Count: 
2
Document Creation Date: 
December 22, 2016
Document Release Date: 
November 8, 2012
Sequence Number: 
23
Case Number: 
Publication Date: 
November 5, 1985
Content Type: 
OPEN SOURCE
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Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/11/08 :CIA-RDP90-009658000302330023-9 ~Tle~.: tiF~~~~ ~('1 PAGE -b-- WASHINGTON TIMES 5 November 1985 KGB defector wants to go home again Was the defection set up to ruin Reagan's agenda? /~ ~EwA'~IIM~1f3TON~TIMES Intelligence experts believe So- viet KGB official Vitaly Yurchenko's announcement yesterday that his de- fection was coerced was a deliberate act designed to affect the agenda of the upcoming summit meeting be- tween President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. The incident also has brought into question the competency of the Cen- tral Intelligence Agency to identify and handle defectors and is likely to spur administration reforms of agency procedures in handling de- fectors. Some analysts said Mr. Yurchen- ko's charges of "torture" and forced drug use to coerce secret informa- tion has embarrassed the intelli- gence community two weeks before the Geneva summit. Georgetown University professor Roy Godson, an expert on Soviet in- telligence operations, said he be- lieved Mr. Yurchenko could have been a false defector from the begin- rringwho was sent by the Soviets "to discredit President Reagan and pre- venthim from using human rights at the summit:' Mr. Reagan and Soviet leader Mi- khailGorbachev will meet fora sum- mit in Geneva Nov 19-20. They also said the charges of tor- ture and drug use could scare other would-be defectors, who might fear harsh treatment in the United States as a result of the Yurchenko claims. George Carver, a former CIA offi- ctal who is a senior analyst with Georgetown University's Center for Strategic and International Studies, said in an interview that it appeared the CIA had mishandled Mr. Yurchenko's case. obviously the handling of it was something less than optimal;' he said. "Either the guy was misjudged or not kept in the proper en- vironment:' He dismissed Mr. Yurchenko's al- legations that the CIA used drugs to obtain secrets as a "story that ... was clearly made up out of whole cloth:' "Anybody [at the CIA] who would have suggested that would have been fired;' Mr. Carver said. iVlr. Carver also said Mr. Yur- chenko could have planned his false defection since the beginning on July 28 in Rome, or he may have suffered a "psychic sea change" and decided to return to the Soviet Union. He also speculated that the Sovi- etsmay have communicated in some way with Mr. Yurchenko and suc- ceeded in convincing him to return to the Soviet Union. Mr. Yurchenko apparently fooled the highest levels of the CIA. Sources close to Wyoming Repub- lican Sen. Malcolm Wallop, a critic of current CIA counterintelligence policies, said Deputy CIA Director John McMahon told the senator as late as Thursday, "I'll stake my ca- reer on his [Yurchenko's] bona fides:' CIA Director William Casey has said privately that Mr. Yurchenko was one of the most valuable defec- tors to come to the West and com- pared the former No. 5 man in the KGB to two other Soviet bloc defec- tors -Britain's top KGB spy, Oleg Gordievski, and East German diplo- mat, Martin Winkler. Mr. Gordievski is in England. Mr. Winkler defected from the East German Embassy in Argentina and fled to West Germany. Last month, a CIA official said the agency was convinced that Mr. ~ur? chenko was a legitimate defector be- cause he exhibited "no abnormal- ities," such as drinking or mental problems, that have affected the credibility of past Soviet defectors. The official said Mr. Yurchenko had identified two former CIA of- ficials as suspected Soviet spies, but defended the agency against a con- troversy over Soviet penetrations ~YinB. 'There were no moles and there are no moles in the CIA:' The official said Mr. Yurchenko had set oNy one condition on his de- fection: that intelligence agencies would not provide any public confir- mation of his departure since such a revelation would jeopardize his fam- ily in Moscow Angelo Codevilla, a former aide of Sen. Wallop who is now an intelli- gence expert with the Hoover Insti- tution, said the CIA's handling of Mr. Yurchenko is evidence that U.S. in- telligence agencies "lack the requi- site ability and competence to run the [counterintelligence) business:' Mr. Codevilla said the Yurchenko case could have been prevented if the CIA had relied lesson polygraph tests to determine Mr. Yurchenko's sincerity and more on vigilant cross- checking of information with "unex- pected" intelligence -information from channels the Soviets did not know the United States was using to collect data. He said CIA officials involved in handling Mr. Yurchenko should re- sign over the failure of counterintel- ligence. Georgetown's Mr. Godson, in an interview, also said Mr. Yurchenko "apparently gave information that has been described as 'chicken feed' " to establish his credibility with U.S. intelligence. "His performance today was so strong it seemed to have been re- hearsed;' Mr. Godson said. "He didn't look like a man who had been drugged:' Mr. Godson also suggested that Mr. Yurchenko may have suffered "post-partum depression" in that what he had expected in the West failed to materialize. Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/11/08 :CIA-RDP90-009658000302330023-9 _. . ___ Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/11/08 :CIA-RDP90-009658000302330023-9 He mentioned the case of Sovtet editor Oleg Bitov who Mr. Godson said had told him that he had de- fected voluntarily. Later Mr. Bitov returned to Moscow and charged that he had been drugged and kid- napped. Andrew Nagorski, a former Mos- cow correspondent for Newsweek, said the Yurchenko affair was de- signed to "clear the decks"ofdiscus- sionsabout Soviet human rights vio- lations and support for international terrorism at the summit. He said Moscow orchestrated the dramatic "escape" of Mr. Yurchenko to pre- vent Mr. Reagan from going ahead with U.S. plans to raise human rights and Soviet-backed terrorism and thereby limit the summit agenda to arms control and specifically talks on curbing U.S. strategic defense re- search. One intelligence expert, speaking on background, described Mr. Yur- '~ chenko's ploy as a "deliberate provocation of great magnitude:' Mr. Yurchenko managed to make fools out of the entire U.S. intelli- Bence community, including the Senate and House intelligence com- mittees which failed to question the CIA about Mr. Yurchenko's legiti- macy, the expert said. The expert said he believed the Soviets timed the Yurchenko press conference to coincide with meet- ings in Moscow between Secretary of State George Shultz and Soviet officials, scheduled in Moscow only hours after the embassy news con- ference here. Z , Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/11/08 :CIA-RDP90-009658000302330023-9