SPY STORY SHOWS AN UGLY BUSINESS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000403220006-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 8, 2012
• Sequence Number: 6
• Publication Date: November 18, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/03/08: CIA-RDP90-00965R000403220006-8
` Oy PAGE
PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER
18 November 1985
Spy story shows
an ugly business
By Stanley Karnow with the U.S. government's handling
The tangled tales these days of So- of the case, hired a private lawyer,
viet defectors and refectors remind Richard Copaken, to find her hus.
me of my involvement in one of band. Copaken called me after his
these episodes a few years ago. The various efforts had gone nowhere.
experience was brief, but it afforded He had learned through a mutual
that I knew Victor Louis, a
me some insight in that murky
Y
[ came away with the conclusion journalist. Copaken asked me to set
that the agents and counteragents up a session with Loui. I agreed
and counter-counteragents who pop- after Copaken pledged me exclusive
ulate the clandestine services are rights to the story when we reckoned
probably less efficient than the po- it would not jeopardize Shadrin.
lice officer on the corner. I thereupon contacted Louis and
And they often get away with mur- arranged for him to meet us in Hel-
der in the very real sense of the term sinks. I told Louis nothing of the
because, operating in secrecy, they subject advance.
cannot be held accountable. Our encounter in Helsinki was like
My story has its origins in 1959, a scene from "Mission Impossible."
when a Soviet naval officer by the We sat on a park bench while Copa-
name of Nicholas Shadrin escaped ken explained to Louis that Shadrin
from Poland to Sweden, claimed po- was an innocent tourist who had
been
litical asylum and eventually was Louis, r by the dubious KGB.
taken
taken to the United States after poly- ter, , however took me aside charac-
tests supposedly showed that and said: no "fool.Nonsse enssee. . m The e days yof kid-
his defection was sincere. and
He was a was i Ewa Gora, napping defectors are over. That Sha-
a Polish woman later to become his drin mes have been a double agent
wife - an indication that his flight or someth hing fit Louis
from communism may have had nNn to look Nevertheless, to te affair Co.
from
r
personal than political mo- look into but
tives. not ot before he had told the lawyer
le-
In Washington, after passing adds- that, in exchange, he wanted his le-
tional tests to prove his honesty, Sha- gal help in a libel action . was
States.
drin was given a job in the Pentagon Nothing pursuing in the United ted meeting.
as an analyst of information on the The Shadrin came case of that
ed on. Pres-
o onid
Soviet navy. Soon afterward, a tough ident s Sha Ford raised it dragged with Leonid
decision confronted him. neonid Brezhnev He was approached by a member of no avail. The , the CIA late I and d FBI tin
lont
continued
the KGB, the Soviet espionage organ- their investigations, Soviet
without success.
ization, and asked to work as a spy Finally, e oday, , a recent
t
for his former homeland. He re- Ft defector oother the
ported the overture to the Federal Sovte disclosed to CIA in-
Bureau of Investigation, which saw a Shadrin. as what had happened to
chance to use him. hadr and his revelation had the
The FBI turned him into a "dou- ring of plausibility - or so U.S.
tgv
ble" - furnishing him with phony A agccorddining t
ac-
data to pass on to the KGB so that, in count, the defector's ab-
the process, he could report back on ducted d, in Shadrin Vienna had in indeed 1975 b o been a
ythe activities on the Soviet appara- operatives KGB
on. But to pump
p
tus. From then on, Shadrin met with him o n who intended
KGB men in different places. hm for information. But in a strug-
On Dec. 18, 1975, Shadrin arrived in him g le ensued, they tried to silence
Vienna with his wife, ostensibly on a killed ll with chloroform and instead
skiing vacation. In fact, he was due to Thus the with an dos.
meet there with the KGB. He left his Te KGB men d had bneglee
the hotel room in the late afternoon - the job business. as badly was had everyone essa a
and vanished. A local CIA agent, as- business with ith a a wide de margin plainly, for ie .
signed to keep an eye on -him, evi- business
bungled. tor.
I entered the act a couple of years (Stanley Karnow is editor of the
later after Mrs. Shadrin, dissatisfied International Writers Service.)
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/03/08: CIA-RDP90-00965R000403220006-8