SOVIET DEFECTOR ACCUSED OF FABRICATIONS IN BOOK

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00587R000100260022-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 24, 2011
• Sequence Number: 22
• Publication Date: July 1, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/02/24: CIA-RDP91-00587R000100260022-1
'ARTICLE 0? V% r
ON PAGE
NEW YORK TIMES
1 July 1985
Soviet Defector accused
Of Fabrications in Book
A magazine article charging that a
former Soviet diplomat made up im-
portant parts of his best-selling book,
with the apparent complicity of the
Central Intelligence Agency, has
evoked heated denials from the
American intelligence community.
Moreover, defenders say that even if
some dates in the book are incorrect
and some passages embellished, the
overall thrust - that the author spied
for the United States while serving as
the senior Soviet official at the United
Nations, until his defection in 1978 -
is essentially correct.
The story by Edward Jay Epstein,
titled "The Spy Who Came in to Be
Sold," appears in the Issue of The
New Republic on sale today. It sets
out a lengthy bill of particulars
against the book "Breaking With
Moscow" by Arkady N. Shevchenko,
the highest-ranking Soviet official
ever to defect.
Mr. Epstein's article seeks to cast
doubt on Mr. Shevchenko's claim that
he spied for the United States begin-
ning in 1975,. while he was the senior
Soviet diplomat at the United Na-
tions, until his defection.
It attempts to debunk Mr. Shev-
chenko's claim that he furnished the
C.I.A. with details of Soviet strategy
on arms-control negotiations, includ-
ing the strategic arms limitaton
talks.
And it asserts that the "car chases,
meetings, conversations, reports,
dates, motives and espionage activi-
ties" in the book, which has been on
the best-seller list for 18 weeks, were
concoted to create "a spy that never
was."
C.I.A. Issues Response
Mr. Shevchenko, who did not return
a message left on his answering ma-
chine, is said by his publisher and
friends to be out of the country on
vacation and unreachable. But last
week, while galleys of the Epstein ar-
ticle were circulating in Washington
and New York, the C.I.A. took the un-
usual step of responding publicly to
Mr. Epstein's article, saying that Mr.
Shevchenko "provided invaluable in-
telligence information" to Washing-
ton and that the C.I.A. "had nothing
to do with writing his book."
Nevertheless, the Epstein charge
that the book is a fraud caused both
the book's publisher and Time maga-
zine, which ran two lengthy excerpts
from the book earlier this year, to re-
examine its accuracy. Both pro-
nouncgd themselves satisfied that it
is accurate.
But Mr. Epstein, who has, written
books challenging the Warren Com-
mission conclusion that Lee Harvey
Oswald acted alone in killing Presi-
dent Kennedy, said he sticks by his
account. In the magazine article and
in telephone interviews, he said the
spy fraud was perpetrated in order to
produce a "success story" at a time
when "the C.I.A. was in disarray"
following congressional revelations
of past abuses, and the agency was
concerned about K.G.B. espionage
successes. the
Mr. Epstein's article makes
numerous allegations, and cites a
number of seeming inconsistences in
Mr. Shevchenko's account. Mr. Shev
chenko's inaccessibility and the re-
fusal of some present and former offi-
cials to discuss the various matters
have greatly complicated the task of
independent observers in rechecking
the accuracy of many points raised in
the article. Nevertheless some of Mr.
Shevchenkq_'s assertions that have
been questioned by Mr. Epstein can
be supported and certain inconsisten-
cies of Mr. Epstein's account have
come to light.
Kissinger Cited in Article
For example, a major Epstein
claim is that "one former national se-
curity adviser to the President" -
whom he subsequently identified as
former Secretary of State Henry A.
Kissinger - told him "there could
have been no such spy as Shevchenko
purported to be" without his knowing
about it. But Mr. Kissinger did not re-
turn a number of telephone calls to
his New York office, seeking to verify
that claim.
However, Stanfield Turner, who
headed the C.I.A. from 1977 to 1981,
said in a brief telephone conversation
that, "Shevchenko gave good intelli-
gence." And Ray Cline, former
deputy C.I.A. director, said that the
C.I.A. denial is correct "and the
Shevchenko story substantially truth-
ful."
Mr. Epstein, reconstructing a
timetable based on incidents reported
in the book, says Mr. Shevchenko's
spy career could not have begun be-
fore 1976. "Yet the book details a
wealth of espionage coups Shev-
chenko accomplished on behalf of the
C.I.A. before 'the end of 1975,' " Mr.
Epstein writes.
The Shevchenko book is vague on
dates - as indeed it should be, in the
opinion of current and past intelli-
gence officials. And Mr. Epstein is
correct that Senator Daniel Patrick
Moynihan, when he was later vice
chairman of the Senate intelligence
committee. wrote that he Iearrw~ o^
Dec. 5, 1975, that bb told an American i
that he wished to d
But Senator Moyn
scribed the Shevche
as "invaluable," sa
tant to discuss detai
article, except to re
Shevcbenko "was wortcmg for us for a
period until that rather dramatic mo-
ment" of his defection.
Information on Arms Talks
Mr. Epstein writes that one of those
espionage coups claimed by Mr.
Shevchenko in 1975 was that of
providing information about the
strategic arms limitation talks. Yet
Mr. Epstein said in conversation that
Mr. Kissinger told him he had never
heard of Mr. Shevcbenko passing
along Information on those talks.
"And if that claim is wrong than the
book's a He even if none of the other
details are wrong," he added.
But Strobe Talbott, the Time maga-
zine correspondent who recom-
mended that Time publish the Shev-
chenko excerpts, and the author of
several books on arms negotiations,
said be is convinced that the Shev-
chenko story stands up. "A former in-
telligence community official with di-Y,
rect knowledge told me one reason he
remembered the Shevchenko epi-
sode, although he did not know Shev-
chenko by name, was because this
Soviet source at the U.N. was provid-
ing information that was useful on
arms control," he said.
Mr. Epstein's article describes Mr.
Shevchenko's three-page account of a
1976 dinner party at the two-room
apartment of Boris Solomatin, the
head of the K.G.B. in New York, at
which they and Georgi A. Arbatov,
the Soviet authority on the United
States, discussed President Ford's
chances of winning re-election - dis-
cussions that he said he relayed to the
American case officers.
But "there could not have been
such a meeting," Mr. Epstein writes,
because Mr. Solomatin returned to
the Soviet Union in July 1975, six
months before Mr. Shevchenko began
his alleged spying for the United
States and more than a year before
Mr. Arbatov would have come to the
United States to appraise the presi-
dential elections.
Discrepancies Not Explained
William Geimer, a former State
Department official and close friend
of Mr. Shevchenko, concedes that he
has no ready explanation for the ap-
parent discrepency. He said he has
not been in contact with Mr. Shev-
chenko since he left the country early
last week. "But my suspicion is that
Solomatin came back into the country
and Epstein missed it," he said.
Even if that were true, Mr. Epstein
said, the apartment that is described
in such detail as having been Mr.
Solomatin's would then have be-
longed to his replacement.
Continued
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/02/24: CIA-RDP91-00587R000100260022-1