KGB DEFECTOR WANTS TO GO HOME AGAIN

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000302330023-9
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 8, 2012
• Sequence Number: 23
• Publication Date: November 5, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/11/08 :CIA-RDP90-009658000302330023-9
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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.
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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