DEFECTOR WAS CIA INFORMANT

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000504870070-4
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 8, 2012
• Sequence Number: 70
• Publication Date: February 4, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/02/08: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504870070-4
AFTICLE APPEARF.T)
i PAGE
THE WASHINGTON POST
4 February 1985
Defector was CIA Informant
By Joanne Omang
Washington Post Staff Writer
Arkadv N. Shevchenko, a former
aemor adviser to Soviet Foreign
~:iinister Andrei A. Gromyko who
defected to the West in 1978, was a
top CIA informant who provided the
United States with crucial intelli-
gence information for 32 months
before he defected, according to
excerpts from his memoirs pub-
.lished today in Time magazine.
When Shevchenko, 53, asked for
asylum, he was undersecretary gen-
eral of the United Nations and an
arms control specialist, the highest-
ranking diplomat to defect since
World War II.
Reports -circulated at the time,
that he had been in touch with U.S.
intelligence agencies, but they were
not confirmed:
In his new book, "Breaking With
Moscow," being published later this
month, Shevchenko says he first
approached Americans about de-
fecting in 1975 and was, told to pro-
vide information first as a kind of
sincerity test.
In an interview broadcast last
night on CBS News' "60 Minutes
Shevchenko said the CIA made him
keep working undercover longer
than he wanted to.
"I never had an idea of a long pe-
riod of spying but ... what can I
do, you know, and they could even
betray me to the Soviets," he said.
"I was actually in their hands."
Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan
(D-N.Y.), who was U.S. ambassador
to the United Nations at the time,
told interviewer Mike Wallace that
through Shevchenko, "for the first
time we got an understanding of
how Soviet foreign policy is made
and how it is operating .... It was
invaluable. Nothing like it had ever
before occurred."
Shevchenko said in the interview
he had provided information on So-
viet intentions in Africa and Central
America and on Politburo debates
over China. "There was a period
when the Soviet Union ... was re-
ally considering the idea of using
nuclear weapons against China," he
said.
Gromyko is "half human, half a
machine, or a computer," he said.
Other leaders "live in almost com-
plete isolation from the ordinary
people," but they "don't intend to
use nuclear warfare weapons
against the United States. I'm sure
of it," Shevchenko said.
Moynihan said he helped conceal
Shevchenko's role by "being as dis-
agreeable in public as I possibly
could" to him.
His CIA handlers took extraor-
dinary security measures, renting
an apartment in Shevchenko's
building to facilitate keeping in
touch.
When Kremlin leaders began to
suspect Shevchenko's double life,
he defected so abruptly he almost
abandoned his wife, who knew noth-
ing. Soviet officials said she later
committed suicide.
Shevchenko subsequently had a
very well-publicized -relationship
with Judy Chavez, a self-described
call girl he met through the FBI.
Their expensive travels and parties
made the news and embarrassed
the CIA.
"I was stupid enough to pay [her]
quite a substantial amount of mon-
ey," Shevchenko said. He later mar-
ried a U.S. citizen, Elaine Jackson.
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Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/02/08: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504870070-4