THE SHADRIN A DOUBLE AGENT

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99-00498R000100140102-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 20, 2007
• Sequence Number: 102
• Publication Date: May 8, 1978
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Approved For Release 2007/06/20: CIA-RDP99-00498R000100140102-6
STAT
ARTICLE APPEARED
ON PAGE 42-48
NEW YORK
8 May 1978
By Tad Szulc
".:". Shadrin disappeared after United StE
lessly thrust him into the role of double age
It was through a stunning succession
of blunders, carelessness, and inexcus-
able acts of intelligence greed span-
ning a sixteen-year period that the
United States lost its most valuable
Russian military defector. The missing
man is believed to be either dead or
incarcerated in the Soviet Union.
There are still questions which prob-
ably never will be satisfactorily an-
swered, but all indications are that
the man known as Nicholas George
Shadrin was kidnapped by the Soviets
through the fault of American intelli-
gence agencies. There is little reason to
-believe that he redefected voluntarily,
that he was. killed by the CIA (as the
Russians have insinuated), or that,
tired of being a pawn for both sides,
he decided to create a new life for
himself somewhere in the world.
Shadrin disappeared. in Vienna in
December 1975, after United States
intelligence had senselessly thrust him
into the immensely dangerous role of a
'double agent working with the KGB,
the Soviet secret service. He vanished
under circumstances that make it clear
that he was cruelly used by his su-
periors as bait for the Russians. Spies,
after all, are expendable when they
become a problem.
That Shadrin, a gregarious, intelli-
gent, onetime Soviet Baltic-fleet de-
stroyer commander, was recruited by
the CIA in 1959, and had not simply fled
to the Nest to marry the woman he
loved-as alleged at the time by him
and the United States government-
was a closely ? guarded secret, until
.now, and it sheds wholly new light
on his covert relations with the Ameri-
can intelligence establishment.
It'explains why he agreed to servf
as a double agent under extremely bi-
zarre and controversial conditions, and
it may also help to explain the strange
behavior, after his disappearance, of
two succeeding administrations, their
unwillingness to open secret intelli-
gence files on him to his wife and her
lawyer in their search for the truth, and
the glaring inconsistencies encountered
during a private investigation of the
Shadrin case.
Defectors. are one of the most sensi-
tive subjects in -Intelligence operations,
after all, and neither the administration
on the highest level nor.. senior intel-
ligence officers are prepared to discuss
various. theories surrounding the Shad-
rin case. (This reluctance was further
enhanced by the defection last month
of Arkady N. Shevchenko, the Soviet
diplomat who served as undersecre-
tary general of the United Nations in
New York. Shevchenko is the greatest
diplomatic intelligence prize ever won
by the United States.)
At first, Shadrin was worth his
weight in gold to the United States. At
the time when the Soviet Union
launched a major buildup of its navy,
the information brought by Shadrin
was crucial to the United States Navy.
After he outlived his usefulness, how-
ever, he was transformed into a double
agent to satisfy the insatiable appetite
of American intelligence. If it were not
for this greed, Shadrin would be living
tranquilly in the United States today,
like other Soviet defectors.
His name originally was Nikolai
Fedorovich Artamonov, but on orders,
after his arrival in the United States,
he changed it to Shadrin-after the hero
rer `1iiA n.?.... - - -- '- ----- - -
chant-marine captain). It was a point-
less deception, because he testified as
Artamonov in an open session of the
House Committee on Un-American Ac-
tivities in September 1960, and the
audience included a Soviet diplomat
busily taking notes. Afterward, no ef-
fort was made to conceal his real. iden-
tity, and Shadrin was the nearest thing
to a public figure in intelligence circles.
This was the first major blunder and
led to all the others.
Nobody, it seems, wishes to delve
into intelligence secrets that could
cause considerable embarrassment "to
the United States. Fall disclosure could,-
for example, highlight the sixteen years
of blunders surrounding Shadrin's ac-
tivities in this country and abroad,
methods employed by American intel-
ligence, and conflicts involving the CIA,
the FBI, and the Pentagon's Defense
Intelligence Agency_
Shadrin was not a run-of-the-mill
spy or defector: He had high-level ac-
quaintances and friendships in Ameri-
can intelligence, which made him a.
vulnerable figure.
One friend was Admiral Rufus L.
Taylor, who, as director of naval intel-
ligence, was his boss during the time
the Russian ex-officer served as a spe-
consultant to the navy. And Ad-
cial
miral Stansfield Turner, for example, I
got to know Shadrin sufficiently well to write him "Dear Nick" letters (Shad-
tin had lectured at the Naval War Col-
Mystery men: CIA files yielded these pho-
tographs of KGB agents Oleg Koslov (left)
and Mikhail Kur)iev (center), possibly
the last men to see Shadrin (right) alive. [
Approved For Release 2007/06/20: CIA-RDP99-00498R000100140102-6