Spy Handler by Victor Cherkashin

Author:Victor Cherkashin [VICTOR CHERKASHIN WITH GREGORY FEIFER]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Basic Books
Published: 2011-12-29T05:00:00+00:00

8

After arriving in Washington, Yurchenko began riding waves of conflicting emotions. Escaping the Soviet Union and cooperating with former adversaries who now professed to be his best friends must have given him a massive adrenaline rush. But it was overshadowed by one main concern: Yurchenko believed he was dying of stomach cancer and had only weeks or months to live. That expectation likely played a major part in his decision to abandon his family and Motherland. Yurchenko insisted that the CIA keep his defection secret—chiefly to protect his wife and son back in Moscow. There was a chance his family could be spared harassment if no direct confirmation of his defection surfaced.

Languishing in his safe house during weeks of debriefings, he became increasingly restless and depressed. Hoping to keep him happy, the CIA promised him $1 million on top of a $62,000 annual stipend and a well-appointed house in the Washington suburbs. He was also taken to a private dinner with Casey. His mood improved, but not for long.

Another issue may have played a seminal part in Yurchenko’s decision to defect—it was reported that he had a lover, a young woman called Valentina Yereskovskaya, whom he’d met and had fallen for in Washington during the 1970s. That was news to me. Everyone in the embassy had known the two were good friends, but no one suspected an affair. Yereskovskaya, who was married to a Soviet diplomat, had been the embassy pediatrician. In 1985, her husband was posted to Montreal, where both now lived. In a risky bid to assuage Yurchenko’s growing unhappiness, the CIA arranged for him to meet his lover to try to convince her to run away with him. Under heavy security, he appeared at her Montreal apartment when she was alone.

Everyone who knew Yurchenko also knew he didn’t care for his wife. Having to live with a woman he didn’t desire no doubt depressed him. Now he wanted to spend his last few months with the woman he did love. He didn’t want to hurt his family (hence his pains to protect them), but had decided to make a last bid for his own happiness. So there he was, in the doorway of his former mistress’s apartment. To his great surprise, she turned him down flat. She’d loved a KGB colonel, not a traitor, she told him.13 Yurchenko’s hopes of spending his last days in a CIA-bankrolled union with his beloved vanished. The blow struck hard.

More trouble for the defector and his stewards loomed. Still in Montreal in late September, Yurchenko came across a reprinting of a Washington Times story in a Canadian newspaper that broke the news of his defection. More stunning than the leak itself was its almost certain source: no one other than Casey himself, no doubt eager to generate good press for the agency, which was embroiled in the Iran-Contra scandal. For Yurchenko, it was a slap in the face.

His grim mood worsened on his return to Washington. To bolster his flagging spirits,

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