Chapter 21
Yurchenko: false defector and genuine spy
There are any number of examples of defections in the history of espionage. One day someone leaves their own side and goes over to the enemy, taking with them something very valuable: his secrets. If the information is good enough, the defector can hope to have a pension for life and enjoy a peaceful existence, sometimes under a new face that has been altered due to cosmetic surgery.
More amazing are the rare stories of the agents who have been there and back: men who have betrayed both their own side and that of the enemy. This is the extraordinary story of Otto John, the head of German counterintelligence who went over to the East in 1954 before returning to the West a year later. However, this was a manipulation staged by a rival service. In this chapter, the return trip was even more surprising and incredible, not to mention still unexplained.
In l985VitalyYurchenko was an important KGB agent.The head of a counterintelligence department, he was considered by the West as being the fifth most important figure in the Soviet government. For the five years from 1975-1980 he had been the security officer at the USSR embassy in Washington, which means he directed part of the Soviet spy ring that had infiltrated North America. On his return to Moscow, he was involved in the Farewell case, the famous Soviet mole who worked for the French DST and who would end his days in front of a firing squad.
Yurchenko was a master spy. But in July 1985, a tumultuous year that saw multiple defections and denouncement of spies, in the East as well as the West, this eminent KGB agent chose ‘freedom', as it used to be called.
It was quite a coup for the Americans and Yurchenko was interviewed by CIA agents for several weeks. The Soviet gave the names of several KGB agents, so the Americans had no reason to doubt his sincerity. However, just four months after his arrival in the US, Yurchenko defected and fled to the Soviet embassy in Washington. He told the press that he had been captured and drugged by the CIA and immediately revealed his intentions to return home, which he did. Shortly afterwards it was announced that he had been shot, although Moscow denied this and indeed, Yurchenko soon reappeared. He resumed his spy work and his employers did not appear troubled by his defection. Impossible? No: Yurchenko had been acting on orders and his passage to the West had been a hoax. But why?
In the KGB flowchart, Yurchenko worked mainly in the Anglo-Saxon area and the CIA men knew perfectly well who he was. They even suspected him of being the executioner of Shadrin, a KGB double agent who also worked for the Americans. Shadrin had mysteriously disappeared in 1975 in Vienna and no one had seen him since. He was, in fact, kidnapped and executed by a team led by Yurchenko.
In late July 1985 Yurchenko was in Rome and was there to supervise the movement of a handful of Soviet scientists in Sicily. The scientists in question were to participate in an international conference on nuclear weapons. Yurchenko was there to control their appointments and visits and to ensure their safety. Naturally, a major priority of Yurchenko's team was to ensure that the scientists did not cross over to the West.There was no shortage of such happenings if one looks at history.
In early August, Yurchenko decided to visit the Vatican museums. He left the Soviet embassy, got into a taxi and drove off. Twenty-four hours later, he had still not reappeared and his compatriots in Rome began to panic. The Italians, who were very embarrassed, began to search for him while in the mean time the affair took on an international dimension. In Moscow, the Foreign Office demanded results and accused the CIA of having abducted Yurchenko.
In reality, Yurchenko had never been to the Vatican. Two hours after he had left the Soviet embassy, he sought refuge at the US diplomatic mission and immediately asked for political asylum. The CIA were quickly informed: Yurchenko, after all, was a very big fish and it was immediately decided to transfer him discreetly to the US as soon as possible.
It was two months later before people learned from official US sources that a high-ranking KGB officer had defected. Yurchenko was living in a country house, not far from the CIA'S Langley headquarters, where he could be questioned, relentlessly. Ever cautious, the secret service first made him sit a lie detector test. After all, Yurchenko could be a false defector, or a ‘Trojan Horse' as it is known in counterintelligence: an agent who pretends to have betrayed his country, only to better intoxicate those with whom he has found refuge.
But Yurchenko passed the test and as the sophisticated device developed by intelligence experts was considered infallible, the men of the CIA no longer had any reason to doubt him. He spoke a great deal and soon gave up valuable information. He began by acknowledging his responsibility in the disappearance of Shadrin, before elucidating on another story that had been significantly bothering the staff at Langley.
In 1984, the head of the CIA station in Moscow sent out a warning: his men were falling one after another, being denounced, arrested by the KGB and then deported. What was worse, a Soviet aviation expert called Tolkachev, who was an important CIA informant, had just been shot.There must have been a mole, but until then, the Americans had been unable to identify who it was.
When asked about this, Yurchenko said that he knew at least one agent who had infiltrated the American secret services, a former CIA officer whose code name was ‘Robert'. After giving more details, ‘Robert' was identified. His real name was Edward Lee Howard and although he was no longer a fed, the role he had played had been particularly devastating. Yurchenko then proceeded to
