Vitaly Sergeyevich Yurchenko ( rus, Виталий Сергеевич Юрченко; born May 2, 1936) is a former high-ranking

KGB The KGB (russian: links=no, lit=Committee for State Security, Комитет государственной безопасности (КГБ), a=ru-KGB.ogg, p=kəmʲɪˈtʲet ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)əj bʲɪzɐˈpasnəsʲtʲɪ, Komitet gosud ...

disinformation officer in the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

. After 25 years of service in the KGB, he defected to the United States during an assignment in

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

.Alexander Kouzminov ''Biological Espionage: Special Operations of the Soviet and Russian Foreign Intelligence Services in the West'', Greenhill Books, 2006, , page 107 After providing the names of two U.S.

intelligence officer An intelligence officer is a person employed by an organization to collect, compile or analyze information (known as intelligence) which is of use to that organization. The word of ''officer'' is a working title, not a rank, used in the same way a ...

s as KGB agents and claiming that Lee Harvey Oswald was never recruited by the KGB, Yurchenko slipped from the Americans and returned to the Soviets. It is clear that his initial defection was illegitimate, because Yurchenko was awarded the

Order of the Red Star The Order of the Red Star (russian: Орден Красной Звезды, Orden Krasnoy Zvezdy) was a military decoration of the Soviet Union. It was established by decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of 6 April 193 ...

from the Soviet government for the successful "infiltration operation."

Background

Plaque in Washington DC restaurant commemorating last meal of Vitaly Yurchenko

Upon his defection to the United States, Yurchenko identified two American intelligence officers as KGB agents:

Ronald Pelton Ronald William Pelton (November 18, 1941 – September 6, 2022) was a National Security Agency (NSA) intelligence analyst who was convicted in 1986 of spying for and selling secrets to the Soviet Union. One such top secret operation he compromis ...

and

Edward Lee Howard Edward Lee Victor Howard (27 October 1951 – 12 July 2002) was a CIA case officer who defected to the Soviet Union. Pre-CIA career Howard served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Bucaramanga, Colombia. There he met Mary Cedarleaf in 1973, and they ...

. Pelton was later

convicted In law, a conviction is the verdict reached by a court of law finding a defendant guilty of a crime. The opposite of a conviction is an acquittal (that is, "not guilty"). In Scotland, there can also be a verdict of "not proven", which is consid ...

, while Howard fled to the Soviet Union before he could be questioned.

Disappearance

In November 1985, before eating a meal at Au Pied de Cochon, a French restaurant in the Georgetown neighborhood of

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

, Yurchenko told his

CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian intelligence agency, foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gat ...

guard, "I'm going for a walk. If I don't come back, it's not your fault." Yurchenko did not return. The building, located at 1335 Wisconsin Avenue NW, now houses a "&Pizza"

franchise Franchise may refer to: Business and law * Franchising, a business method that involves licensing of trademarks and methods of doing business to franchisees * Franchise, a privilege to operate a type of business such as a cable television p ...

. A plaque commemorating the event was once displayed in one of Au Pied de Cochon's booths.

Return to the Soviet Union

Several days later, the Soviet Embassy called a press conference, at which Yurchenko announced he had been kidnapped and drugged by the Americans. It is possible that his defection was staged to fool the CIA with wrong leads, to protect

Aldrich Ames Aldrich Hazen "Rick" Ames (; born May 26, 1941) is a former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer turned KGB double agent, who was convicted of espionage in 1994. He is serving a life sentence, without the possibility of parole, in the Federa ...

, an American who worked for the CIA and was then one of the Soviet Union's most important moles within the CIA. The KGB was reported to have secretly interrogated Yurchenko after his return, under the influence of a

truth drug Truth is the property of being in accord with fact or reality.Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionarytruth 2005 In everyday language, truth is typically ascribed to things that aim to represent reality or otherwise correspond to it, such as beliefs, ...

, to ensure he had not been recruited by the CIA as a

double agent In the field of counterintelligence, a double agent is an employee of a secret intelligence service for one country, whose primary purpose is to spy on a target organization of another country, but who is now spying on their own country's organi ...

Theories

At a 1999

Texas A&M Texas A&M University (Texas A&M, A&M, or TAMU) is a public, land-grant, research university in College Station, Texas. It was founded in 1876 and became the flagship institution of the Texas A&M University System in 1948. As of late 2021, T ...

conference attended by several CIA intelligence professionals, as well as KGB General Oleg Danilovich Kalugin, the question of Yurchenko's defection came up. Kalugin stated that Yurchenko started as a real defector, then changed his mind and redefected. Kalugin gave several points: *The KGB typically did not use 'fake defectors' because the defection would be a propaganda problem for the Soviet government. ("People were not supposed to run from the paradise") *Yurchenko was in love with a woman married to a Soviet official and thought that they could be together in the US. This did not work out as planned. *Yurchenko had a

stomach ulcer The stomach is a muscular, hollow organ in the gastrointestinal tract of humans and many other animals, including several invertebrates. The stomach has a dilated structure and functions as a vital organ in the digestive system. The stomach is ...

that worried him greatly and thought it could be cured in the US. It was not. *Yurchenko's defection was leaked to the media after he had been promised it would not be. *Yurchenko "felt his freedom to move around was sort of limited by the CIA". *Yurchenko apparently thought the KGB might treat him well because of the cases of recent redefectors like Betov and Chebatriov. Another panelist also believed he was a legitimate defector. James Olson of the

George Bush School of Government and Public Service The Bush School of Government and Public Service is an undergraduate and graduate college of Texas A&M University founded in 1997 under former US President George H. W. Bush's philosophy that "public service is a noble calling." Since then, the ...

said "I think he was a very disturbed individual and he redefected out of psychological problems that he had." Paul Redmond said that

Sandra Grimes Sandra Grimes is a former CIA officer who participated in a small team that investigated and uncovered the actions of Aldrich Ames, a United States counterintelligence officer who was subsequently convicted of spying for the Soviet Union. Early l ...

and

Jeanne Vertefeuille Jeanne Ruth Vertefeuille (December 23, 1932 – December 29, 2012) was a CIA officer who participated in a small team that investigated and uncovered the actions of Aldrich Ames, a notorious Cold War spy. Early life Born in New Haven, Connect ...

(of the

case) also believed Yurchenko was genuine. However, Redmond thought it possible that Yurchenko might have been sent by the KGB as a "starburst".

References

External links