KGB OFFICIAL DEFECTS IN GENEVA'S SPY WAR

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00149R000600280024-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: November 11, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 20, 1999
• Sequence Number: 24
• Publication Date: February 11, 1964
• Content Type: NSPR

NEW YORK F E B 1 1 1964
xrr,.Ar%Pfi"a- Approved For Release : Cl
In Geneva's Spy war
KGB Official Defects
By Tom Lambert
CRYRGHT Of The Herald Tribune Staff
An apparent American victory in the shadowy East-
West espionage war was disclosed yesterday when the Sotto
Department announced that a staff officer of the Soviet
Union's top security agency has defected ?to the U. S.
Yuri I. Nossenko, 36, self-identified as a staff member
of the Soviet Espionage and Counter-Espionage Committee
for State Security (KGB) and regarded, here as "a very
important person," has asked for political, asylum, a State
Department spokesman said. His request will presumably
be granted.
Mr. Nossenko arrived in Geneva Jan. 20-ostensibly as
a legal expert with the Soviet delegation to the 17-nation
disarmament talks. He disappeared from the Rex Hotel o
Geneva's Avenue Wendt last Tuesday, the day before h
was to' have returned to Moscow.
There are broad hints that U. S. Central Intelligence
,operatives persuaded him to defect.
Neither State Department nor CIA officials would
disclose. Mr. Nossenko's reason for defecting or his present
whereabouts. There were varying and unconfirmed reports
that he is in Paris or West Germany. He is undoubtedly
being interrogated by American intelligence officers.
One London sourea said Mr. Nossenko was linked with
the 1962-'63 Penkovsky espionage case in Moscow, but that
.report could not be confirmed here immediately.
Col. Ole- V. Penkovsky of the Soviet Army was arrested
;by Russian agents in October, 1962, and tried in Moscow
last year on charges of having spied over a period of 17
months for the U. S. and Britain. He aws found guilty,
sentenced to death and later reported executed.
The U. S. and British denied complicity in the Pen-
'kovsky case, but informed sources have hinted that it was
.a major coup for American and British intelligence. At the
'time of his arrest, Penkovsky was serving as deputy head
of the Foreign Department of the State Committee for the
Co-ordination of Scientific Research.
If Mr. Nossenko is a KGB staff officer, as he claims, he
might know some or all of the ramifications of the Penkov-
? sky affair, to say nothing of the details of the KGB's
espionage and counter-.espionage operations. Such informa-
tion could be extremely valuable for the U. S. and its allies.
In announcing Mr. Nossenko's defection, State Depart-
ment press officer Richard I. Phillips said the Russians has
told American authorities "he is a staff member of the
`,KGB (and that) he was assigned to Geneva on temporary
duty from KGB headquarters in Moscow."
KGB headquarters is a gray stone former insurance
company office bgilding in Moscow's downtown Dzherzhin-'
sky Square. '
Mr. Nossenko, said to be married and the father of
two children,. reportedly enjoyed European life and some
of its accoutrements, such as Western-style clothing. '
According to reports received here, Mr. Nossenko was
billeted in Geneva with nine other Soviet delegation inem
bars in the Re xHotel. When he disappeared, the other
nine Russians, were hastily moved to Soviet delegation
;headquarters.
There were unconfirmed reports from Geneva that
Mr. Nossenko had slipped over the Swiss border into
'France. French police, however, denied ..any knowledge
of him.
'-,Soviet delegation leaders in Geneva did not report,
his ' disappearance until Sunday, when they asked the
aSwiss police to try, to locate him.
Sanitize - Approved or a ease : ? R000600280024-3
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