MOSCOW MOVES RAPIDLY IN DEFECTIONS TO THE U.S.

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000100550002-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 5, 2012
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: November 7, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/05: CIA-RDP90-00965R000100550002-2
"11^lE APPEARED
r:
PAu
r
NEW YORK TIMES
7 November 1985
STAT Moscow Moves Rapidly
In Defections to the U.S.
STAT
STAT
teroffensive intended to minimize the
security damage and lure the defector
back, according to intelligence special-
ists and former defectors.
Typically, they say, the effort in-
volves attempts to reach the defector,
usually by invoking a consular agree-
ment guaranteeing access to each
Country's citizens.
Whether such an attempt was made
the case of Mr. Yurchenko, who says
was kidnapped by American agents,
By RALPH BLUMENTHAL
hen a Soviet agent defects, as would not give away the crown jewels
y Yurchenko is said to have done right away. One guy we had held back
before flying home yesterday, the for two and a half years."
Soviet union mounts a standard coup- Drugging Charge Is Derided
enko. The official said he did not
Freedom of Movement
"Because Mr. Yurchenko seemed to
held loosely enough for him to walk
ay from dinner with his escort from
Central Intelligence Agency last
ttu
May, the official said, the K.G.B.
,loan may also have been free enough to
Slake contact with Soviet diplomats.
"Defectors are not prisoners," the
erican official said. "After a while
re the security is up to them."
According to a former C.I.A. officer,
rry Rositzke, the pattern of a defec-
n case is often set in the first day or
two. Before the Soviet authorities may
realize that their man is missing, he
said, American agents hurriedly de-
brief the defector to obtain as much in-
telligence as possible and act on it be-
fore the Russians take measures.
Mr. Rositzke, ,vho left the C.I.A. in
1070 after nearly 25 years, said defec-
tors often held back information as in-
surance for continued protection.
"Especially if he came over a little
reluctantly," Mr. Rositzke said, "he
Mr. Rositzke derided Mr. Yurchen-
ko's contention that he had been
drugged and abducted.
"If anyone starts kidnapping - boy,
do you get it back in your face," he
said, likening the relations between op-
posing intelligence forces to those be-
tween national leaders. "You don't as-
sassinate heads of state because others
,would be quick to reciprocate."
The first step of the Soviet Union, the
United States or any other nation that
fears an intelligence official may have
fled or defected is to protect and shift
undercover agents who may be endan-
gered, specialists said.
As with most other defections, Mr.
Yurchenko's case was not made public
at the time he was said to have come
over to the American side in Rome last
May. Presumably, officials said, the
Russians inquired whether he was
being held by the Americans and, if
previous cases are a guide, the Amer-
icans refused to say.
"They will come in and bang their to talk by telephone with his 16-year-old
fists on the door and the counter and de-1; son in Moscow and that this may have
mand to see him but we are not going to
cough him up right away," an Amer-
ican said.
Defection Cases Are Special
He acknowledged that the United
States and the Soviet Union had
pledged to allow access to citizens. But,
the agreement aside, he said, "defec-
tion cases are different."
"With a real hot potato," he added,
"we don't even acknowledge we have
him."
However, officials said, defectors
are encouraged, as soon as they feel
comfortable, to meet with Soviet repre-
sentatives - in the presence of Amer-
icans - to give assurances that they
are not being held against their will.
One such confrontation was de-
scribed by Arkady N. Shevchenko, the
former Soviet diplomat.
In a book, "Breaking With Moscow,"
published this year, he recalled meet-
ing with Oleg A. Troyanovsky, the
Soviet delegate to the United Nations,
and with Anatoly F. Dobrynin, the Am-
bassador to the United States, in the of-
fice of a lawyer, Ernest Gross, after
the defection became known.
Mr. Shevchenko wrote of Mr. Dobry-
nin:
"Employing the intimate form of
'you' that Russian friends normally use
with one another, he expressed only
concern for me, bewilderment at my,
action. 'Arkady, we have known each
other for many years. I don't believe
that all these years you have acted con-
trary to your convictions. How can it be
explained?'"
At the end, Mr. Shevchenko wrote,
the two diplomats handed over two let-
ters from his family, "arguing that I
had made a mistake, urging me to
come home to Moscow."
Such letters and arranged telephone
calls to family members in the Soviet
Union are a standard feature of efforts
to win back defectors, said Bill Geim-
er, Mr. Shevchenko's present lawyer.
Mr. Geimer said there was an uncon-
firmed report that Mr. Yurchenko's
American hosts had arranged for him
been a tactical mistake.
In Washington, Yelena Mitrokhin,
who left her husband, a Soviet Em-
bassy official, to defect in 1978, said in
an interview that she knew Mr. Yur-
chenko and that she had heard he
might have been depressed in Amer-
ican custody over a lack of opportunity
to speak Russian and an "inability to
share his feelings," including a report-
edly unhappy liaison with a woman in
Canada.
Mrs. Mitrokhin, who appeared Tues-
day on the ABC News "Nightline" pro.
gram, said she had tried to see Mr.
Yurchenko, but she said that while the
Federal Bureau of investigation ap-
proved the idea, "the C.I.A. bureau-
cracy is never on time."
She said that after her defection she
agreed to meet at the State Depart-
ment with Soviet representatives.
"They put a lot of pressure on me, in-
cluding some threats," she said.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/05: CIA-RDP90-00965R000100550002-2