Soviet Sailor Returned to Ship After Apparent Attempt to Defect

State Department officials Saturday sought to interview a sailor who officials said jumped from a Soviet ship, apparently trying to defect, but was returned to the vessel by Border Patrol agents who thought he was a stowaway.

As the grain freighter Marshal Konyev remained anchored in the Mississippi River, U.S. officials were in touch with the Soviet Embassy in Washington, State Department spokesman Pete Martinez said. He said U.S. officials wanted to meet with the sailor in an environment where he could speak freely.

The sailor “may not wish to depart with his ship,” said Charles Redman, another State Department spokesman. “We are now seeking to determine his intentions.”

The unidentified seaman jumped into the river Friday while the ship was under way and swam ashore, but he was inadvertently returned to the freighter by Border Patrol agents who could not communicate with him and thought he was a stowaway, said David H. Lambert, district director of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service.

“The Border Patrol didn’t understand what was going on and didn’t realize he was trying to defect and brought him back to the ship,” Lambert said in an interview with the New Orleans Times Picayune.

The ship was anchored Saturday at Belle Chasse, a small port town downriver from New Orleans, but Redman refused to say whether it was being held there. “The Soviet ship is free to leave when we have satisfied ourselves about this individual’s intent,” he said.

Redman said that a State Department official and a Soviet Embassy representative were in New Orleans and that the U.S. representative wanted to speak to the sailor.

Thomas Richard of Universal Shipping Agents Inc., a St. Rose company, said he received a call from the Border Patrol late Thursday telling him that a sailor had swum ashore. Richard said he was ordered to put the sailor back on the ship.

Raymond Guthrie, a boat operator for Port Ship Services, said he ferried the sailor back to the Marshal Konyev.

“He didn’t speak English, but we knew he didn’t want to go back,” Guthrie said. “He jumped off our crew boat when we got near the ship.”