SOVIET PHYSICIST IN EXCHANGE VISIT GRANTED U.S. ASYLUM IN CHICAGO

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000303090057-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 20, 2010
• Sequence Number: 57
• Publication Date: January 4, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/20: CIA-RDP90-00552R000303090057-6
YORK TITS
4 January 1985
Soviet Physicist in Exchange "Visit.
Granted U.S. Asylum in Chicqg
CHICAGO,. Jan. 3 (AP) - A Soviet
physicist who was working in an ex-
change program at the Fermi National
Accelerator Laboratory has been
granted political asylum in the United
States, the Federal Immigration and
Naturalization Service said today.
The 51-year-old scientist, Artem V.
Kulikov, defected Christmas Eve at 0'-
Hare International Airport as he and
another Soviet physicist were about to
board an airplane-to return to the
Soviet Union.
Dr. Kulikov is believed to be the first
high-energy physicist from the Soviet
Union to defect to the United States. He
was granted asylum by the State De-
partment on Dec. 28, according to a
Federal immigration spokesman. in
Chicago who was not identified in a
Chicago Tribune report of the case.
"He walked up to an immigration of-
ficial at O'Hare and asked for asy-
lum," the spokesman told The Tribune.
"There was a struggle for his luggage
with other Soviet scientists, and to say
that they were unhappy is putting it
mildly."
!Meting With Russians
Dr. Kulikov met today in Washington
with officials of the Soviet Embassy,
according to Cathleen Lang, a State
Department spokesman.. The meeting
was reportedly held to assure the Rus-
sians that he was not being held against
his will.
Dr. Kulikov, a senior scientist at the
Leningrad Nuclear Physics Institute,
was one of four Soviet physicists work-
ing on a major experiment at Fermi-
lab, west of Chicago. The four were in-
-volved in building equipment for the
experiment at the facility's atom
smasher near Batavia.
Fermilab's atom smasher is the
world's highest energy particle accel-
erator and allows physicists to meas-
ure the basic properties of matter by
colliding subatomic particles at high
speeds. From that, scientists can help
determine the makeup of the particles
and the forces that govern them.
Soviet scientists have been taking
part in Fermilab programs since I.M.
Dr. Kulikov had been there only three
months.
"He is a- well-known and very re-
spected physicist," said Joseph Lach, a
senior scientist at Fermilab who is in
charge of the project that the Soviet
scientists took part in. "His defection
came as a surprise to everybody."
It was the first defection in the Fer-
milab's 12-year program, according to
Margaret Pearson, a spokesman
Dr. Bruce Chrisman, associate direr-
tar for administration at Fermilab,
said Dr. Kulikov had a wife in the
Soviet Union.
Dr. Lach said Dr. Kulikov had been
depressed since his only child, a daugh-
ter, died in a traffic accident in Lenin-
grad two years ago.
Anson Franklin, an assistant press
secretary, said in Washington that the
White House would have no comment
on the defection.
A man who identified himself only as
"a soldier with the military attache" at
the Soviet Embassy in Washington said
no one was immediately available to
comment.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/20: CIA-RDP90-00552R000303090057-6