SOVIET DEFECTOR'S MEMOIRS EXPOSED AS CIA, MEDIA HOAX

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000402650008-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 22, 2012
• Sequence Number: 8
• Publication Date: July 29, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

3 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/22 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000402650008-0
WIC-LE gpPWe)"D SPOTLIGHT
ONPA6E 29 July 1985
Soviet Defector's `Me,nui,N
Exposed as CIA, Media Hoax
er
By James Harrer
and George Nicholas
Fifty days after The SPOTLIGHT
first reported, in a national ex-
clusive, that the official version of
American history "has been con-
trolled and stage-managed by the
CIA in collaboration with an alien
spy service" (SPOTLIGHT, May
20), the discovery that a recent best-
seller is a fake has provided dramatic
documentation of this populist news-
paper's scoop.
The new publishing scandal is fueled
by evidence' that a volume of "mem-
oirs" that appeared earlier this year
under the byline of Arkady Shevchenko,
a high-ranking defector from the Soviet
diplomatic service, is a fabrication. It
has been concocted and promoted by
leading Establishment media organiza-
tions, including CBS, "Time" maga-
zine, the Washington "Post" and some
of their senior staff writers, working in
cahoots with the CIA and its longtime
silent partner the Mossssad (Israel's secret
service).
The best-selling defector's diary is be-
ing discredited at a time when both the
intelligence establishment and the pub-
lishing world find themselves under fire
for the falsification and adulteration of
jointly produced works of pseudo
history.
New evidence about extensive disin-
formation programs going back for
decades has called into question the
covert collaboration between various
spy agencies and major media organiza-
tions both here and abroad (see related
story).
The SPOTLIGHT began to scrutinize
the Shevchenko affair in April, when a
trusted source, of long-established
reliability, who was associated with the
FBI in New York during the 1970s,
reported that Shevchenko's story was
being dramatized by domestic disinfor-
mation specialists of the CIA.
Shevchenko, however,11d not begin
as a fraud. He was long known to dip-
lomatic correspondents in New York as
secretary ger_erai, t at is, ormer assistant for arms control
one of the highest-ranking Soviet but- studies, who moved up to serve as the
eauerats=atta$bed to the-fnte jonaIo . White House national security adviser
ganization. But the United Nations has during the first Reagan administration.
24 such officials, including at least one And there are several others.
American, and they are neither par- In Moscow, Shevchenko also found
ticularly famous not, powerful figures. his career flourishing as both the Polit-
PROPAGANDIST b1110 and} th9,/1t>-itfed sever
Before being appointed to the world mote attention on arms control and
organization, in 1973, Shevchenko is disarmament policy. From early 1970,
known to have worked as an official he worked as an adviser to then-Foreign
propagandist in the Soviet Foreign Minister (now President) Andrei Gro-
Ministry. A middle-level bureaucrat, his myko and in May of 1973, Shevchenko
principal task was to disseminate disin- was sent to New York to fill the post of
formation in the form of books, articles under secretary general for political and
and official statements about the flaws security affairs, a UN job reserved for
and errors of U.S, arms control policy the Soviets. (A matching slot is provided
and the superior position of the Soviet for a U.S. official.)
Union in this irea. When Shevchenko broke with his
Arms control is a promising occupa- government five years later, in April,
tion for ar.:bitious bureaucrats. It goes- 1978, and was granted asylum in the
beyond ;o :ailed "disarmament"-that United States, there were rumors (in-
is, the lir ..is or discarding of "dooms- cluding some from well-informed
day" weapons by means of international SPOTLIGHT sources) that his defection
agreements such as the SALT I Treaty. was prompted by an uncontrolled sexual
It also involves the question of which appetite rather than by any sincere
combat system should be developed and hunger for political freedom. But the
stockpiled whether as a matter of public flight of such a senior functionary was a
decision or in secret. black eye for the communists and a
Arms policy became the major issue boon (even if a minor one) for American
of the 1970s. In Washington, it attracted intelligence, and no voices were raised in
numerous dual loyalists who were eager public to question Shevchenko's disrep-
to get their hands on the control levers utable private life. (SPOTLIGHT, May
of the national security bureaucracy.
13.)
Among the deeply committed dual- In fact, at the beginning of this year,
loyalist spokesmen who rose to domi- the fugitive communist functionary was
nant positions in the national security promoted into a hero. CBS News ran a
bureaucracy by specializing in disar- documentary on his case in its hig' y
maments and arms control is Max Kam- rated "60 Minutes" show and "Tim "
pelman-a founder of the Jewish Insti- magazine published a series of excerpts
lute for National Security Affairs (JIN- from his forthcoming memoirs. Both
SA), which has come to be known as a news organizations claimed that un-
lobbyist for the Israeli Defense Forces known to anyone except for five top of-
(IDF) and the Mossad, Israel's secret ficials in Washington, Shevchenko had
service. Another such person is Eugene been a C ,~ spy in the Soviet government
Rostow, who was appointed director of for sever years before ' lefec-
the State Department's Arms Control tion-the most important for:_igti agent
and Disarrxanent Agency. Another is who ever gave America secret informa-
Freci Ikle, who eventually occupied the tion.
post of under secretary of defense for MOSSAD COUP
policy.. Displaying Shevchenko as one of its
Then there is Michel Pillsbury, own (a key operative who funneled high
Rostow's deputy at State. Another dual level intelli$ence to Washington from
loyalist is Richard Allen, Kissinger's
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/22 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000402650008-0
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/22 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000402650008-0
the inner circles of Moscow) was a coup
for the CIA As it turned out, it was also
a coup for the Mossad and the Israeli
government because Shevchenko, in a
series of public statements, claimed to be
able to confirm many of the assump-
tions underlying the ever more intimate
U.S.-Israeli collaboration in recent
years.
Most important is a detailed public
statement made by Shevchenko that ap-
peared in the form of a book entitled
"Breaking With Moscow." Published
earlier this year by Knopf, a prestigious
New York firm now owned by Random
House (which in turn is owned by CBS),
the work became an instant best-seller.
Hailed by the Establishment, "Break-
ing with Moscow" sold 200,000 copies
in five months as well as movie and sub-
sidiary rights for several million dollars.
Insiders called it all inevitable because
Shevchenko's principal ghostwriter was
Alfred Friendly Jr., a Washington
"Post" staff writer of high standing,
who reportedly received a whopping
$50,000 advance for his contribution to
the book's success.
But although commercially it proved a
bonanza, the book also proved Shev-
.chenko's undoing. Simon and Shuster,
another mass-market New York pub-
lisher, tipped off friendly journalists
that three years earlier it had rejected a
previous version of Shevchenko's mem-
oirs-and this manuscript had contained
none of the exciting claims of espionage
and intrigue that made the later version
such a hit.
The solution of this mystery was not
hard to piece together. "Shevchenko
was never a spy, or even a major Soviet
defector from the intelligence
viewpoint," a veteran FBI agent told
these SPOTLIGHT reporters, asking
only that his name be withheld. "He
wrote a truthful account of his life in
1980, submitted it to Simon and Shuster,
and found it rejected; there was simply
nothing much gripping or fascinating in
the true-life story of this defector."
But where Simon and Shuster saw on-
ly a dull story, the disinformation
specialists of the CIA and the Mossad
sniffed a major opportunity. They
rewrote Shevchenko's original manu-
script and turned it into a thrilling, if fic-
titious, spy story. Then, by providing
forged evidence to back up the claims in
the manuscript, the two spy agencies
helped sell it to another New York
publisher, who was only too eager to
cash in on this scoop.
WINDFALL
According to this source, whose
disclosures have been confirmed by
other expert observers, the CIA told a
number of literary critics tTiat Shev-
chenko's claims to having been an
American undercover agent were sub-
stantially true. The result was a won-
drous windfall. The publisher hit it rich,
reportedly to the tune of several million
dollars. The CIA found itself on center
stage in the fT it most covets: as a
triumphant spymaster who has beate&
the Soviets at the conspiracy game.
The Mossad and its infiltrated agents
in the U.S. government were able to ex-
ploit a high-level "intelligence source"
who was willing to validate all their
policy blueprints and strategic positions.
. The only losers were history and the
American public, which must depend on
such adulterated official versions of ma-
jor events. "We published the Shev-
chenkaforgery because it looked like a
fat payoff. I doubt we will ever publish a
serious work of historical revisionism,"
confessed a Knopf editor in private con-
versation with a SPOTLIGHT reporter
whom he has known for nearly 20 years.
"But off the record, I think revi-
sionism is the wave of the future and the
sooner the future arrives, the better for
all serious historians and all citizens who
want to have an understanding of the
past." ?
Z
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/22 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000402650008-0