SHEVCHENKO: THE SAGA BEHIND THE BEST SELLER

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000605430008-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 1, 2012
• Sequence Number: 8
• Publication Date: June 6, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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WASHINGTON POST
6 June 1985
Shevchenko:
e Si
By David Remnick .- .,..-...,,,.. I......-- ....,. -.. ,,..., _... -
w-n nomn P mf Staff w.aP. chenko took his place in ? the middle of
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Six months after the defection, Simon
The moment Arkady Nikolaevich Shev- mon & Schuster versus Random House
& Schuster's editor-in-chief Michael
chenko left his apartment on New York's and its subsidiary, Alfred A. Knopf. Simon Korda signed Shevchenko to a contract
East Side one spring night in April 1978 & Schuster, which had promised Shev-
and rode off in a sedan driven by agents chenko $600',000 for the book in 1978, , that called for a guaranteed ad-
of the CIA, he became a hot commodity, turned it down a year later. Too dull and vance of $600,000 and a completed
prized by the intelligence and publishing too late, the publisher said. Now Simon & manuscript by September 1979.
communities alike. As the highest ranking...-:. Schuster is second-guessing the best-sell- On the basis of five early chap-
Soviet official ever to defect, he was an ing manuscript Shevchenko produced this ters, the publisher pronounced the
instant superstar. year for Knopf. S & S is wondering if, in book "unsuitable" in the spring of
Everything has worked out for Shev- one editor's words, Shevchenko didn't 1980. Simon & Schuster demanded
chenko. He is the author of "Breaking "juice- up" his story to make it more com-, Shevchenko return what had al-
With Moscow, which has been on The mercially appealing. ready been paid him-$146,875
New York Times best-seller list for 15 .In the meantime, Arkady Shevchenko plus $16,890.62 a year in interest
weeks. He is constantly invited to lec is a peripatetic celebrity. He is free, on a 10-year payment schedule.
ture, often for $10,000 or more. There is.. wealthy and getting wealthier. Shevchenko's lawyers filed a $15
talk in Hollywood of making a movie of "Arkady's been whizzing around the million counterclaim but lost.
the Shevchenko story; rights could sell country concocting an impossible sched- - Shevchenko's lawyers questioned
for about $500,000. The CIA has'. been We of promotions and interviews as he why the manuscript. was rejected
paying him $60,000-a-year-for-life ever goes," said Shevchenko's lawyer and con- but were never satisfied with the
since he defected, though one agency fidant, William Geimer. "It's been fast and answer. One source who helped
source said, "They'll probably cut the furious for. months. After so long in the with the manuscript said, "Simon &
money. off at some point. He might have wilderness, he's feasting on the attention. Schuster's problem with it was that
more now than the CIA." j ..It's a binge of sorts." the book was incredibly dull. There
But there are lingering . questions of i Shevchenko is now on vacation abroad. was no drama or animation to it.
how valuable Shevchenko has proved for After repeated calls to his office, Shev- And he couldn't write. The stuff
those who were -most enthralled by his chenko told . his secretary he did not want was always late, too."
presence. In the intelligence community, to be interviewed for this article. Said Korda, "I turned it down be-
some agency sources were disappointed - Through his secretary, he did say, "Peo- cause A) it was not interesting, B) it
with the information he provided. Some ple will believe what they want to. I've was not worth the money we had -
thought the level of his information did been underattack before..... I'm not. a paid for it and C) he,did not deliver
not match his rank in the Soviet bureau- politician and I'm not running for public the inside stories on the top-level
cracy. office.,,
And after having .been the subject of a Although he has written opinion pieces Soviet officials we had expected."-
for The Washington Post in the past,. he Although it , took constant revi-
also stated that the newspaper "is detri- soon, Knopf got a.lot more for a lot
mental to the interests and the security of less. For no more than a third of
the United States in its liberal attitudes." what Simon & Schuster had paid,
Geimer said, "Arkady sounds like he's Shevchenko produced ',a best seller.
overdone the travel and worn himself Korda says he was not embar-
out." rassed, but the two publishers are
in a veritable war over best sellers
and Simon & Schuster cannot have
taken the loss lightly.
A nuod
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/01 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000605430008-9
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/01 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000605430008-9 i
vua a~~? ...... - va arjiu...JV . .... . " "
one intelligence source. "Spying for lays a month to havea relationship
with' Shevchenko in the months fol-
the CIA, that's treason, and aKGB lowing his defection. She said Shev-
assassination'squad knows what it?s chenko had admitted to working for
doing. The agency couldn't' have the CIA; she; in turn, made his con-
thought it desirable to have it out, fession public. Chavez later de-
either. scribed it all in a quickie memoir,.
Said -the book's editor at Knopf, "The Defector's Mistress.
Ashbel Green: "I'm not even sure if.The Chavez affair was only part
Simon & Schuster even knew that of a tumultuous period that followed
Shevchenko had had a relationship defection. When Soviet security
had been no mention of his years as
a source for the CIA.
"You can assume there were se-
months before he finally.. defected. and Shevchenko as our spy sto
In the work Shevchenko had sub- ry"-began to leak from sources in
mitted to Simon & Schuster there Congress and intelligence.
thought that was the best chapter!
ecdotal best seller he ended up The secret of Shevchenko's work
writing for Knopf was a lengthy de- The
the CIA before his defection-
defection-
wwanked ion as of a how spy for the Shevchenko CIA 32 had what became known among Geimer
worked
What made the difference be-
tween the wooden, largely academ-
ic book Shevchenko began writing
for Simon & Schuster and the an-
with the CIA."
for.-more than two and a half years
cause the one chapter that changed
least was the Khrushchev chapter.
Korda said 'Keep it like it is.' He
"
call girl named Judy Chavez told an
NBC reporter in October 1978 how
she had been paid thousands of dot
agents discovered that Shevchenko
had bolted his job at the United Na-
tions, they quickly, took his wife
he is "slightly suspicious! of the back to Moscow. She died weeks
"It's funny," said Geimer, "be-stuff about his drinking, Shev
ample, he had told us that he would
deliver a very intimate 'chapter on
Khrushchev but when we got.. it, it
wasn't very interesting at all. Now
the chapter on Khrushchev is very
intimate. I _1
"That kind of thing makes me
think that Shevchenko's experience
with [Simon & Schuster] made him
and his people think they'd better
juice it up a bit."
CIA' and the espionage material.
The' material changed, too. For ex-
present manuscript: "It. wasn't just
because he never mentioned the
chenko's integrity was in doubt,"
Geimer said. "We figured that by
not saying anything about the spy
story, .we were denying it. So we
decided to come out with it and
save a lot of the academic material
for later books.".
,Said Green, "When Simon &
Schuster turned it down, Shev-
chenko and his lawyer [Geimer] dis-
cussed what they had to do and, of-
fering it to another publisher, they
decided to enlarge the story. When
they came to .us in midsummer of
1980, they went to Marc Jaffee,
who was then the head of Ballantine
Books. Marc knew I was interested
in things Russian and passed it on to
me.
"The whole thing took an incred-
ibly long time, nearly four years."
Shevchenko thanks his wife; Gei-
mer and: Green in his book's fore-
word-no one else by name. -
- However,.' sources said that Al-
fred Friendly Jr., a Washington
writer, was paid $50,000 to work
on + Shevchenko's - manuscript.
Friendly, the sources said, worked
for 15 months on the book but
Knopf was. not satisfied with his
version either. Both Friendly and
Green refused comment on the sub-
ject, though Green did say, "Shev-
chenko, Geimer and '.I agreed that
we wouldn't mention anyone out-
side of the three of us."
The final versions were a -collab-
orative effort. Green was instru-
mental in providing the "sandwich"
structure of the book-beginning
and ending with "the spy story" with
a long middle section on the au-
thor's experiences in the Soviet
Union and at the United Nations.
1nwd
later under mysterious circum-
stances.. Shevchenko maintains that
the KGB murdered her. The Sovi-
ets say she committed suicide.
Shevchenko also drank heavily at
times in the months preceding and
immediately following. his defection
but he has now stopped. Geimer
introduced Shevchenko to a court
stenographer named Elaine Jackson
in late 1978. They married within
two months and she left her job to
help Shevchenko write "Breaking
With Moscow."
"With , the Chavez thing and the
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 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/01 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000605430008-9
February, '.'Breaking With Moscow" pert on arms and disarmament. Gei-
got 'the send-.off publicists dream mer himself. said some intelligence
about: a full `segment on ; .'60 officials complained that they had
Officials at Knopf kept the manu-
script a well-guarded secret.
"We were concerned about Shev-
chenko's security," Green said. On
Knopf's lists of upcoming books,
Shevchenko's book was noted as
"Untitled By Anonymous."
When it finally did appear last
running around doing everything.
Despite the CIA's : retainer to
I
and Paris and
was : just, in London
11
Minutes" and two long excerpts in
Time magazine. Time paid between
$25,000 and $30,000 for the ex-
cerpts. y..,
Since publication, Shevchenko
has been pushing his book as hard
as any diet doctor or exercise guru.
"He's exhausted," Green said.
"We're working -him to death. He
found in the book: Shvchenko.paints of ,hiis_ own pow -
J.
Sources said Shevchenko had the
option to go underground, to
change his appearance and identity.
But he refused and appears openly,
in print, on television, at public lec-
terns. He has said that he did not
want to go from "one, prison to an-
other prison."
Shevchenko has been told he has
been sentenced to death in the So-
viet Union. : -
But Stanfield Turner believes
the Soviets will leave Shevchenko
alone "because if any harm came, it
would be embarrassing?too obvious
who had -done it."
Not everybody in the intelligence
community agrees.
"When someone as important as
Shevchenko defects, people. in Rus-
sia hear . about it," said one source.
"And when a defector meets his de-
mise, that news is circulated, too.
Defection is not something to be
encouraged and the Soviets are sure
not to. It will not surprise me at all if
Mr. Shevchenko has an early expira-
tion. The KGB has a long memory."
Intelligence .sources,-all. agreed can be checked), but they both said
that there is nothing _sensitive to be, i, they were:"amused" at the portrait,
who interviewed Shevchenko after
--his defection say that Shevchenko,
an undersecretary general at the
United Nations at the time of his
defection, had little, information to
offer on codes, satellites, defense .
installations and other issues they
had hoped to learn more about from
been "disappointed" with their de-
briefing sessions with Shevchenko.
One source . who interviewed
.
Shevchenko at.length said he_"got
nothing" from the sessions.
"Shevchenko gave us an interest-
ing look at the political hierarchy,"
another intelligence source said.
"There have been far more inter-
esting' defectors in terms of infor-
mation, but' you've probably never.
heard of them. .
Shevchenko; said Green, No CIA Two sources who. helped Shev-
guys ever got. ins touch with me. I chenko at various stages of prepar
was assured ,by Geimer -that there ing. the manuscript ' said they
was no: necessity for. the agency to thought the final.work was gener-
er.
" ....
,.- .
He inflates his own roe a wt; one said Adm. Stanfield Turner, who was
'Director of. the?Central Intelligence
Agency from` 1977 to 1981, said, "I
personally interviewed 'him, knew
him personally, and he had a lot to
offer. I think sometimes people ex-
pect more from a defector than
you're ever likely to.get. The So-
viet Union is : a closed society and'
some of their people don't have the
same information.:. -his American
counterpart might have. .
"You -have to remember that
Shevchenko was not an ambassador:..
to the United States. He was an.
employe of.the United Nations and
so he had less access than an am-
bassadormight."
Shevchenko no longer lives in
"safe houses" with CIA surveillance
as he did in the months following his
defection. Numerous. people, know
where he lives in Washington and
the Soviets, no doubt, know too.
the when CIA. "It was more..dramatic
Stalin's daughter came out,,
this man sat behind Gromyko at
but
meetings.. We've never
Politburo
like that before!"
had anybody
everyone agrees with Moyni-
Not
about the quality of information
han
Shevchenko provided. Highly
sources in the
placed intelligence
CIA and Department of Defense
The principal appeal of "Breaking
With Moscow" stems 'from the
West's fascination 'with, the Soviet
Union and Shevchenko's -ability. to
describe from personal experience
the- atmosphere at a Politburo
meeting,,; Nikita Khrushchev's an-
tics on a ',cruise., or the' voracious
shopping habits of Foreign Minister
Andrei Gromyko's wife Lidiya.'
"He was the highest-level de-
fector we've , ever-had", said Sen.
Daniel P. Moynihan, who was am-bassador to the United Nations and
one of _ otily a few U.S. officials
aware ' of Shevchenko's status with
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/01 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000605430008-9