SOVIET DEFECTOR DEFENDS BOOK AGAINST CRITICISM

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000301860009-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 27, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 15, 2012
• Sequence Number: 9
• Publication Date: August 1, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/11/15 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000301860009-8 STAT
-.CLE AP u NEW YORK TIMES
)1?1 PAGE 1 August 1985
Soviet Defector Defends
Book Against Criticism
By EDWIN MeDOWELL
Special to The NIT York Times
WASHINGTON, July 31? Break-
ing a monthlong silence, Aricady N.
Shevchenko, the highest-ranking
Soviet official to defect to the West,
today denied allegations that his best-
selling book is exaggerated, embel-
lished or inaccurate.
The book. "Breaking With Mos-
cow," has been on the best seller list
for 22 weeks. But an article by Ed-
ward Jay Epstein in The New Repub-
lic magazine earlier this month
charged that Mr. Shevchenko, who
defected in 1978, made up important
parts of the book with the apparent
complicity of the Central Intelligence
Ageoga...The article also sought to
cast doubt on Mr. Shevchenko's claim
that he spied for the United States
beginning in 1975, while he was Under
Secretary General and the ranking
Soviet diplomat at the United Na-
tions.
During an hourlong news confer-
ence at the ?rational Press Club this
morning, Mr. Shevchenko described
Mr. Epstein's charges as "unwar-
ranted attacks" and "plain false-
hoods." If his book is a fraud, he said,
"then two Presidents of the United
States are frauds, both Carter and
Reagan, who knew about my story,
and the several National Security ad-
visers also are frauds."
A number of high-ranldpg United.
States officials have said that Mr.
Shevchenko's book is essentially cor-
rect. These Include Senator Daniel
Patrick Maynahan, Democrat of New
York, who had been chairman
of the Senate Intelligence mmittee,
and Stens-field Turnerwas Di-
rector of central Intafle frini
1977 to 1981.
Blames Faulty Memory
But Mr. Epstein's article cited a
number of apparent inconsistencies
in Mr. Shevchenko's account, several
of which the former Soviet diplomat
today blamed on a faulty memory.
"Human memory is not a perfect
instrument," Mr. Shevchenko said.
"I'm amazed that I didn't make more
mistakes than I already did." He de-
scribed the errors as minor.
The most important of them was in
describing at length a 1978 dinner
party at the 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, supposedly dis-
cussed President Ford's chances of
winning re-election ? discussions
that Mr. Shevchenko said be relayed
to the American cue offtcers.,
In his article, Mr. Epstein wrote
that Mr. Solomatin had returned to
the Soviet Union in July 1975, six
months before Mr. Shevchenko began
his alleged spying for the United
States. Today, Mr. Sheychenko said
that he may have been wrong about
the date. "I think that it happened a
few months before" the date cited in
the book, be said. But he insisted that
the dinner and the dinner conversa-
tion were accurate.
Mr. Epstein, said today that Mr.
Shevchenko's explanation still does
little to inspire confidence in the ac-
count in his book.
"I don't doubt that be met Arbatov
or Solomatin," Mr. Epstein said.
"The question is did be meet with
them the way he describes it. In the
book, be tells of relaying information
about that meeting to the U.S. If the
=Wag took place before July 1975, it
was Wwe he supposedly made con-
tact with the C.I.A. and the F.B.I. If it
was after Mc Solomatin wasn't
even in the U.S. Either way, the ac-
count is fictionalized."
Mr. Sheychenko, dressed in a dark
suit, yellow shirt and red checked tie,
said that he waited until now to re-
spond to the article because he was
out of Washington much of the time
and because he had not wanted to re-
spond at all. But, he said, "when it's
been snowballing, I felt that I had to
react."
In answer to a question, he ac-
knowledged that he had not been out
of the country on vacation late in
June, shortly before Mr. Epstein's ar-
ticle appeared, as his editor and law-
yer had said he was.
Mr. Shevchenko denied any C.I.A.
involvement with the book, except to
help him find transIrs vffilen he
bugaziating_m_garker _virfoin in
Russian. He said he assured the
aitenc?TrThat he would not reveal the
names of its officials, but the agency
did not help him write the book, did
not see it before it was published and
did not particularly like the portrait
that he painted of the agency in the
book.
?XI-though Mr. Shevchenko said he
could not speculate on Mr. Epstein's
motives in attacking his book, he said
that Soviet officials "have been work-
ing here in the United States to com-
promise me." He said he was told
that some Soviet officials were talk-
ing to Congressional assistants and
journalists, presumably to under-
mine his veracity.
Goar - Saniti7ed CODV Approved for Release 2012/11/15: CIA-RDP90-00965R000301860009-8