High-Ranking KGB Man Reportedly Defected to U.S.

A high-ranking Soviet KGB officer has defected to the West after fleeing East Germany in a helicopter and has been supplying the United States with important information, according to reports published today.

The KGB major general is the highest ranking of five defectors who sought U.S. protection last year, U.S. News & World Report magazine reported. The New York Times, in another report, quoted one source as saying that the officer had proven to be much more valuable than Vitaly S. Yurchenko, a turnabout Soviet defector who returned to Moscow late last year amid widespread publicity.

The unidentified middle-aged KGB professional was smuggled out of East Germany in late April or early May by helicopter, then hidden to prevent press leaks that might have upstaged the Geneva summit in November, U.S. News said.

After the summit, he was flown to the United States and settled somewhere in the Midwest, where he has assumed a new identity, the magazine said it learned from American intelligence sources.

CIA Refuses to Comment

The defection has not been acknowledged by the Kremlin, and the CIA has refused to comment on the published reports.

Three other East Bloc defections occurred last year: Milan Svec, the No. 2 officer at the Czechoslovak Embassy in Washington, Sergei Bokhan, first secretary at the Soviet Embassy in Athens and Oleg Gordievsky, KGB station chief in London.

U.S. News said the disclosure of a fifth defector “now carries no apparent national security risk.”

Criticism of CIA

The CIA has drawn heavy criticism for its handling of Yurchenko, who left his CIA guard behind in a Washington restaurant last year and returned to the Soviet Union, gaining heavy world publicity for his claims that he was drugged by the CIA.

The magazine quoted the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), as saying that he has asked for a thorough review of the CIA’s handling of Yurchenko “and also one other defector that has not been made public.”

Sources told the New York Times that the officer might be able to provide information about the KGB’s organization, management and procedures.