* Peter Deriabin; Soviet Agent Defected to U.S.

Peter Sergeyevich Deriabin, 71, at one time the highest-ranking Soviet agent to defect to the United States and who later worked for the Central Intelligence Agency. Deriabin was a major in what became the KGB and was working in Vienna when he defected in 1954. He worked for the CIA until retiring in 1981, advising the agency on history, personnel, philosophy and practices of Soviet intelligence. “The vast amount of accurate information which Mr. Deriabin provided in the area of knowledge least available to the U.S. government was of incalculable value to the national security,” the CIA said in a statement. Deriabin was the author of several books, including his 1959 autobiography, “The Secret World.” A CIA spokesman announced this week that Deriabin had died Aug. 20 of complications of a stroke in an undisclosed northern Virginia city.