YURCHENKO SAYS CIA TRIED TO LINK POPE PLOT, SOVIETS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00587R000200880035-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 14, 2010
• Sequence Number: 35
• Publication Date: August 10, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/14: CIA-RDP91-00587R000200880035-8
STAT
STAT
WASHINGTON POST
10 August 1986
(Late Edition)
Yurchenko Says
CIA Tried to Link
Pope Plot, Soviets
Russian Who Redefected
Surfaces in Interview
8f- Cdsslia- llsmen
WuhH to, U IIwvlce
MOSCOW, Aug. 9-Vitaly Yurchenko,
the Soviet defector who made a dramatic
return to Moscow last November, has told a
Moscow newspaper that the CIA tried to
make him implicate the Soviet Union in the
1981 attempt to assassinate Pope John Paul
II.
In today's edition of the city Communist
Party newspaper Moskovskaya Pravda,
Yurchenko said that while he was in CIA
custody, agents also tried to get him to go
public with Soviet plans for subverting Cen-
tral America.
When he asked for proof of this Soviet ac-
tivity, he was told not to worry, Yurchenko
said in the article, materials and documents
would be brought to him and he would only
have to testify to their being genuine, he re-
called being told.
"Our press will do what it can so people
believe you," he quoted a Tom Fountain,
identified as deputy CIA director, as saying.
"It has had comparable experience."
(The Federal Executive Directory, which
lists CIA personnel at the deputy director
level, does not show anyone named Foun-
tain. CIA spokeswoman Kathy Pherson said
the agency lists four of the five deputy di-
rectors. The fifth, deputy director of oper-
ations, is never publicly named by the agen-
cy.]
Yurchenko also said that Director of Cen-
tral Intelligence William J. Casey told him in
a meeting that it was necessary to persuade
the world that all anti-American activity .in
Latin America was directed by Moscow.
Yurchenko said the CIA was preparing
him to testify in Rome that the Soviet se-
cret police, the KGB, had worked with Bul-
garians in the plot against Pope John Paul
II. Yurchenko was to play the part of some-
one named Malenkov, who supposedly had
met in Sofia, Bulgaria, with Sergei Antonov,
the Bulgarian airline official who was ac-
cused of conspiring with Turkish gunman
Mehmet Ali Agca. "Malenkov" would testify
that he gave Agca 3 million West German
marks for the job, Yurchenko said.
"In presenting me as a ranking KGB of-
ficer, the Americans hoped to give special
weight to my testimony and to exert a de-
cisive influence over the course of the
Rome trial," he said.
Yurchenko, who has said he was an em-
bassy security officer, disappeared from the
Soviet Embassy in Rome in August 1985.
When he appeared at the Soviet Embassy in
Washington in November, he said he had
been kidnaped and coerced by the CIA.
At a subsequent press conference in
Moscow he said that he "escaped" from his
keepers by walking away from a George.
town restaurant.
Last March, Yurchenko was spotted on a
Moscow street and filmed by a West Ger-
man television crew. But today's interview,
called "The CIA's Kitchen of Falsehoods," is
the first official public word from him since
the November press conference.
The publication of the interview comes
just two days after the Soviet news agency
Tass announced that former CIA agent Ed-
ward Lee Howard had been granted polit-
ical asylum in the Soviet Union.
Howard was a former CIA agent who in
1983 had been slated for a Moscow posting.
He was sidetracked and later fired because
he failed a polygraph test and a subsequent
investigaton revealed a history of alcohol-
ism and drug use. By last fall, he was sus-
pected of selling secrets to the Soviets.
Yurchenko's "redefection" and now How-
ard's defection have given the CIA two con-
secutive severe blows. The. two cases are
relatod, but with a twist worthy of a spy
novel.
It was Yurchenko who apparently tipped
U.S. intelligence to Howard's role in pass-
ing information to the KGB. Two months
before Yurchenko returned to Moscow,
Howard disappeared from his home in Santa
Fe, N.M.
Now, Yurchenko and Howard are in the
same country. There is speculation that
Howard, like Yurchenko, will give a press
conference in Moscow.
Yurchenko, in his interview today, dis-
puted rumors that he had suffered or been
punished since his return to Moscow.
"As you can see, I am alive and well and
(western reports] do not correspond to re-
ality, " Yurchenko said at the start of the in-
terview. He said that he had been under
medical care during December and January
and returned to his "old job" in March. He
did not elaborate.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/14: CIA-RDP91-00587R000200880035-8