The Safe Safehouse | Chapter 4

Summary

The Redefector - Episode: The Safe Safehouse | Chapter 4

Release Date: April 2, 2025

Introduction

In Chapter 4: The Safe Safehouse of The Redefector, host Julie Cohn delves deeper into the enigmatic defection of Vitaly Yurchenko, a high-ranking KGB colonel who defected to the United States in 1985. This episode explores the complexities of establishing a secure environment for Yurchenko, the interplay between the CIA and FBI in handling defectors, and the intricate web of espionage that unfolds as Yurchenko's true intentions come into question.

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Establishing a Safe House

Finding an appropriate safe house for Vitaly Yurchenko was no small feat. Julie Cohn emphasizes the myriad challenges involved, from ensuring the location remains concealed across seasons to assessing neighborhood dynamics. Yurchenko's safe house was eventually secured in Coventry, Virginia, a quiet countryside area near Fredericksburg. Catherine Shannon, a CIA logistics officer (a pseudonym), was tasked with coordinating the move. David Major, then a sales clerk at Powell's Furniture, recalls the experience of accommodating Yurchenko and his entourage:

"She introduced herself as an attorney. She said it was for a weekend retreat for attorneys... Vitaly Yurchenko, the Soviet defector, was going furniture shopping." (02:21)

Interactions with Yurchenko: CIA vs. FBI Handling

A significant theme in this chapter is the divergent approaches of the CIA and FBI in managing defectors. Ronald Kessler, a former journalist and author of Escape from the CIA, provides insight into these differences:

"The CIA had this idea that defectors are malcontents... Whereas the FBI is and was the opposite. The FBI treated defectors like the incredible assets they are..." (06:36)

Julie Cohn corroborates Kessler's observations, noting that Yurchenko bonded more with his FBI handlers, Reid Brose and Mike Rochford, than with his CIA team. This distinction became pivotal as Yurchenko's demeanor and trustworthiness began to wane.

Yurchenko's Daily Life and Relationships

Yurchenko's interactions within the safe house reveal a complex personality. While he sought camaraderie with his FBI handlers—often engaging in activities like basketball and golf—his relationship with CIA officers like Colin Thompson was strained:

"He certainly wasn't charming... He was a professional. So while we had our differences, mostly they were submerged." (11:21)

Yurchenko's penchant for control and his pride often clashed with his young bodyguards, leading to tensions. Anecdotes highlight his demanding nature, such as insisting on specific brands of clothing or expressing frustration over security protocols. Despite these challenges, moments of humanity surfaced, illustrating Yurchenko's multifaceted character.

Internal CIA Issues: The Edward Lee Howard Mole Case

The episode takes a dramatic turn with the introduction of Edward Lee Howard, a CIA officer turned mole. Yurchenko's revelations about Howard exposed significant fissures within the CIA:

"They had sat on their intel about Howard in part because they were embarrassed... The CIA might have alerted the FBI, say, when Howard made belligerent, drunk crank calls..." (47:22)

David Major, a former senior FBI executive, discusses the fallout from Howard's betrayal. The CIA's reluctance to share critical information with the FBI hindered efforts to apprehend Howard, allowing him to exploit his training to evade surveillance techniques he once taught. This case underscores the deep-seated rivalry and lack of trust between the two agencies, complicating national security efforts.

Conclusion and What's Next

As Yurchenko's situation becomes increasingly precarious, he attempts to leverage his connections to reunite with Valentina, a Soviet diplomat's wife living in Montreal. This move sets the stage for further espionage intrigue, as the delicate balance between trust and deception teeters on the brink.

The Safe Safehouse masterfully unravels the layers of espionage, agency politics, and personal dynamics that define Vitaly Yurchenko's defection saga. Julie Cohn's meticulous research and engaging narrative provide a comprehensive understanding of one of the Cold War's most perplexing intelligence debacles.

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Notable Quotes

• Ronald Kessler on CIA vs. FBI Handling:

  "The CIA had this idea that defectors are malcontents... Whereas the FBI is and was the opposite." (06:36)

• David Major on Yurchenko's Interactions:

  "Yurchenko was always a little bit afraid of me because we were taking a walk one time..." (18:28)

• Ronald Kessler on Yurchenko's Humanity:

  "He was alternately annoyed with us or hospitable to us, depending on his mood..." (26:03)

• Sam Harrington on Yurchenko's Health Claims:

  "I found him to be completely unconvincing in terms of any medical issue." (38:46)

• David Major on the Howard Case:

  "The CIA might have alerted the FBI... They did not, and it probably should have told the FBI..." (47:22)

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Key Takeaways

• Agency Dynamics: The CIA and FBI employ markedly different strategies in handling defectors, impacting the effectiveness of intelligence operations.

• Yurchenko's Dual Persona: Vitaly Yurchenko exhibited both trusted collaborator traits and suspicious behaviors, raising questions about his true intentions.

• Internal Betrayal: The Edward Lee Howard mole case highlights critical vulnerabilities within the CIA and the consequences of inter-agency mistrust.

• Humanizing Defectors: Despite the cloak of espionage, moments of genuine human interaction emerged, adding depth to the narrative of defectors and their handlers.

The Safe Safehouse not only sheds light on Vitaly Yurchenko's mysterious defection but also exposes the intricate and often flawed mechanisms of intelligence agencies during a tense era of global politics.

Transcript

[Julie Cohn]

When life brings the blah Add more yabba dabba doo with some tasty fruity Pebbles early morning meeting blah. Someone brought the Pebbles Yabba dabba doo. Run errands blah. Head to the store for Pebbles Yabba dabba doo Fruity Pebbles, Less blah, more yabba dabba doo Pick up Pebble cereal today. Yabba dabba doo and the Flintstones and all related characters and elements Copyright and trademark Hanna Barbera At Ameca Insurance, we know it's more than just a car.

[David Major]

It's the two door coupe that was.

[Julie Cohn]

There for your first drive, the hatchback.

[David Major]

That took you cross country and back, and the minivan that tackles the weekly carpool for the cars you couldn't live without.

[Julie Cohn]

Trust Ameca Auto Insurance Amica Empathy is our best policy. This podcast is intended for mature audiences. Listener discretion is advised. So it turns out it's not easy to find a safe house, especially if you're shopping in August. A house that might look well obscured from the street by trees in the summer might be in plain sight by winter when the leaves are gone. What are the neighbors like? Nosy and tight knit? Or are they chill? And the house needs multiple means of exit in case guards need to get the hell out of there in a situation where the main driveway is blocked. So okay, there are a lot of boxes that need to get ticked. But you know what else is hard once you find a safe house? Shopping to fill it in a hurry. After weeks of looking, the CIA finally found a good option for Vitaly Yurchenko. Hours away from D.C. in the quiet countryside near Fredericksburg, Virginia, in a housing community called Coventry, a middle aged woman named Catherine Shannon, that was not her real name, was the CIA logistics officer assigned to the move. Dave Richardson, who is now the general manager of Powell's Furniture, had only just begun his job as a sales clerk there in August of 1985.

[Ronald Kessler]

It was a slow day, so not a lot of foot traffic in, but that particular day it was my turn to watch the door. And of course sometimes you fall asleep or whatever, watch some tv. We had all that going on being a family owned store, but I remember the day. Young lady, not a young lady, forgive me, but a middle aged lady came in, I approached her.

[Julie Cohn]

He waited the required 45 seconds so that a customer didn't feel pounced on.

[Ronald Kessler]

She introduced herself as an attorney. She said it was for a weekend retreat for attorneys that she worked for a law firm. I believe his firm was Schaefer. She had given me a business card. That's what it was Introduced as a place for a retreat for burnout attorneys.

[Julie Cohn]

You know, just your regular old burnt out attorney's retreat. Only these lawyers must have been very suddenly burnt out because this retreat was urgent.

[Ronald Kessler]

This thing needed to be done. Yesterday is her words like, of course, that excited me as a new salesperson because I assumed it was going to be a large deal.

[Julie Cohn]

It turns out Catherine was shopping for several rooms and said she'd return with one of the attorneys in a couple days to pick it out. Vitaly Yurchenko, the Soviet defector, was going furniture shopping.

[Ronald Kessler]

Actually, they came back with him and two other gentlemen. And these two other gentlemen, I learned later, were with the department, the CIA. They were watching him. They were with him. They were his security. They were his blanket. And she was probably that blanket, too. But again, I didn't know that. I didn't want to surmise that. I was still into the game of the sale, which was important at that time because I had no money, you know, a little bit, but nothing to brag on.

[Julie Cohn]

Dave Richardson was right, David. Those two men were Yurchenko's CIA bodyguards. And as it happens, one of them was Dan Payne.

[David Major]

I remember going to this furniture store, and I remember that the only person in the furniture store was this young guy. So I'm thinking to myself, okay, this is going to be a big bill, and I hope he's working on commission.

[Julie Cohn]

From Waveland. I'm Julie Cohn and this is the Redefector. This is Chapter four, the Safe Safe House. By the time Yurchenko and his entourage moved into the new safe house at Coventry, it was early September 1985, about a month after he first arrived. By then, some of the initial glow of his defection had worn off and the relationship dynamics between the CIA, FBI and the defector had begun to crystallize. I think it's important to get a clear view of what Yurchenko's day to day looked like while he was here in the US and what those relationships looked like to get a real feel for his experience. Because many of the details I'm about to share with you are not known by most people who would later make their assumptions about whether or not Yurchenko was a real defector or a cunning disinformation officer. Because, remember, as we Learned in episode one, 90 days after he first stepped foot on American soil, Vitaly Yurchenko would disappear, would run away from the CIA. And those who believed he was a real defector, especially those in the FBI, often blamed Yurchenko's disappearance on the CIA's treatment of him during this resettlement process. So I wanted to find out, what were his relationships like with the CIA and the FBI. Were they really all that different? Ronald Kessler, a former D.C. journalist and the author of the book Escape from the CIA about Yurchenko's time here, has strong opinions about the differences between the FBI and the CIA's handling of defectors and of Yurchenko in particular.

[Ronald Kessler]

There was a wide gap between the way the FBI and the CIA handled Yurchenko. On the one hand, the CIA had this idea that defectors are malcontents, and there's something wrong with them because they decided to defect. It's just an incredibly idiotic attitude. Whereas the FBI is and was the opposite. The FBI treated defectors like the incredible assets they are, tried to develop camaraderie with them, tried to give them whatever they wanted within reason, treated them with respect. And so, of course, Yurchenko picked up on that. In the FBI, they're taught that defectors really do try to help the U.S. on principle, that they. That they realize that the Soviet Union is ghastly and that they genuinely want to help. That's often the real reason they want to defect. Whereas at the CIA, the idea is, oh, they're just trying to feather their own nest, they're trying to make money. They're misfits. Totally different.

[Julie Cohn]

Many in the CIA would beg to differ with this description, and there are many cases where they would be right. My experience talking to folks was that generally, though, and especially at this time, the CIA did not encourage much camaraderie with defectors, whereas the FBI really understood the value of putting defectors at ease and forming trust. In the case of Vitaly Yurchenko, it is true that he bonded quickly and early on with his FBI handlers, Reid Brose and Mike Rochford, and not as much with his CIA team. Mike spoke some Russian, which Yurchenko loved.

[Ronald Kessler]

Yurchenko wanted to go on walks in between our debriefings, and I'd always go on walks with him because I liked to walk with him. I used to play basketball up there. Basketball court right across the street from the safe house. I'd go there on Saturdays. I mean, you get like, collegiate level players playing. We'd walk around and we'd sit on the sidelines and watch these guys playing basketball and stuff.

[Julie Cohn]

Reid also remembers Yurchenko fondly. Would you say you and Yurchenko became friends?

[David Major]

Yeah, yeah.

[Julie Cohn]

Did you enjoy hanging out with him?

[Ronald Kessler]

Oh, yeah, yeah, I did. I did we had a good time. We had a good time.

[Julie Cohn]

Yurchenko told Mike and Reid, though mostly Mike, in Russian, stories about his family, his brother, his adopted son Peter, who was having trouble and acting out. He told them stories from his time in D.C. in the 70s, when he was working at the Russian Embassy. When he was there, actually, Yurchenko had become very close with an FBI agent named Ed Joyce. Joyce, who passed away in 2021, was the FBI liaison with Yurchenko during the years he worked in D.C. the men would get lunches at top restaurants together. They would go to sports games or go on double dates with their wives. Joyce even invited Yurchenko to his daughter's wedding. Ed Joyce told Kessler that because of the friendship they built, Yurchenko really opened up about his disappointments about the Soviet Union and his admiration for America.

[Ronald Kessler]

Ed Joyce, you know, told me how Yudchenko seemed to admire America. He was, you know, impressed by the restaurants that they went to and things like that. He clearly thought a lot highly of America and would, in fact, complain about Russia, about the Soviet Union, would complain about conditions there.

[Julie Cohn]

In the same FBI spirit of building common ground and friendship, Reid decided that he and Mike would teach Yurchenko to play golf.

[Ronald Kessler]

So I found an old lawnmower in the garage, so I mowed and set up a chip and putt area. What do y'all do? Oh, we play a little golf. Reed and I, we were funny.

[Julie Cohn]

We.

[Ronald Kessler]

We bought him a. A putter, and we made a par three golf course out of the grounds there. It was like 10 acres or something like that. And so it was pretty cool. I mean, you know, he was just cheap old putter. But now I don't know who has that putter. I think either. I think Reid does.

[Julie Cohn]

As for his CIA debriefers, Colin Thompson, for one, did not share Mike and Reid's warm feelings for Yurchenko. And the feeling was mutual. I asked Colin what Yurchenko was like.

[Ronald Kessler]

He certainly wasn't charming. Never charming. Look, he was KGB officer. He'd been around a long time. He was respected within the KGB for his service and his rank and so forth, and he expected to be respected here. And it's exactly what we did. And that's why I didn't much care for him ever. And he probably didn't care much for me either. But he was a professional. I knew it, and treated him that way, and he knew I was a professional. He treated me that way, and so that worked that way. And so while we had our differences from Time to time. Mostly they were submerged. And we got along all right.

[Julie Cohn]

You know, I asked him what the differences were.

[Ronald Kessler]

Oh, it was a bit of a hypochondriac. As I say, he was fussy. One of the problems was keeping him entertained. I don't know. Never did really find out what his interests were.

[David Major]

I mean, he.

[Julie Cohn]

Okay, so Colin, who isn't really much of a golfer himself, clearly wasn't out there playing putt putt. But I asked Reid if any of the other CIA folks played any games with Yurchenko.

[Ronald Kessler]

Only time that I found I saw any people who were doing interviews was when they were interviewing. They would interview and leave. They believe that they've got. They had their security there, and they left it all up to security.

[David Major]

And these are young guys.

[Julie Cohn]

They were certainly young. Here's John Fitzpatrick, one of Yurchenko's bodyguards at Coventry. I can't believe you're 22.

[Ronald Kessler]

Okay, I'm to not lose this fact. I spent my 23rd birthday with virtaly Yurchenko.

[Julie Cohn]

What?

[Ronald Kessler]

Watching the Miss America.

[Julie Cohn]

Oh, my God.

[Ronald Kessler]

So we could. But I'll just finish that anecdote he told me because he had been assigned in Washington. I think he served for five years in Washington in the 70s, and. And he became enamored of the Miss America pageant during that time and was especially proud of his ability to choose.

[David Major]

The winner during the broadcast. And Whoever won in 1985, he picked her out of the finals.

[Julie Cohn]

Wait, so he really. He was right. He could actually pick them up.

[David Major]

It was that night.

[Ronald Kessler]

That night that he was bragging about his ability to pick the winner.

[Julie Cohn]

He picked the winner on your birthday.

[David Major]

And it happened to be my. It's how I remember spending my 23rd birthday with the Russian defector.

[Julie Cohn]

I just love that story. I called John Fitzpatrick back with a better phone connection, and John echoed that the relationship Yurchenko had with the CIA was more strained than it was with the FBI and offered an interesting take.

[Ronald Kessler]

He seemed to be more welcoming and respectful to the FBI guys than the CIA guys.

[Julie Cohn]

And.

[Ronald Kessler]

And I mean that by that, into his interlocutors. The security guards were just his boys. We were all sort of twenties and early thirties. He understood that idea of a custodial deal, that we were not substantive partners of his. And so we were sort of, say, in a slightly separate group than, you know, than the folks that would be interviewing him. He was a little warier of the CIA folks who had a little bit more control over his, you know, his future. And so the bureau guys didn't have that responsibility towards him, and it made things a little bit cleaner for them, I think.

[Julie Cohn]

Young guards were all from the CIA Office of Security. This is Dan Payne again.

[David Major]

Initially, he didn't say a whole lot to us. As time went on, we got to know him a little bit better. He got more comfortable with us. But keep in mind, you know, most of his bodyguards, like, I think at the time I was 26. Maybe I was 26. And probably the oldest bodyguard he had was in his early 30s. He was in his 50s, and he was already a general designate in the KGB. He was going to get promoted to general to him. In fact, he used to refer to us as Du Bois. That was what he called us. We were at two different levels. Two different levels in our career, two different levels in what we knew and didn't know as far as the intelligence business was concerned. We were. We were there to just protect them.

[Julie Cohn]

You did not become best friends with.

[David Major]

No, I. I wouldn't say anybody on. I wouldn't say any of his bodyguards became best friends with him. We were there to do a job, and. And sometimes the. Sometimes he didn't like what we had to do as. As part of a job to. To protect. Truly to protect him. I'll get to that a little later. But when, you know, when we move to the other safe house, Yurchenko like nature, and there was a big wooded area in the back, and, you know, he would always want to go in that back area, and because there was a lake back there, and he found a beaver dam, and so he used to like to watch the beavers build the dam. But we had to go with him. You know, when he went out into the woods, we were with him, and I think he felt a little bit closed in, maybe.

[Julie Cohn]

Remember, everyone who was with Yurchenko during his stay in America referred to him only by his alias, Alex, for security purposes.

[David Major]

But I mean, just like, following him into the woods, I mean, that used to piss him off to no end. And we tried to explain it to him. Alex, we have to be with you. He would tell us. He says, gentlemen, I am not going to run away. And we would tell him, we would say, alex, we're not worried about you running away. We're worried about somebody doing something to you. And that's why we're here. We couldn't let him go back there alone, but we gave him a little bit of breathing space. We give him a little bit of room. We'd stay back, but we'd keep him in sight and so we tried to overcome things that way. But, yeah, I wouldn't say he was friendly with us, but not unfriendly either. He was almost indifferent.

[Julie Cohn]

Dan recalls setting a tone early in their relationship.

[David Major]

Yurchenko was always a little bit afraid of me because we. We were taking a walk one time, and he said to me, he said, dan, do you have a knife? I said, yeah, I got a knife. And I pulled a switchblade out of my pocket, and I. I clicked it open and he says, ah, you have a special knife. I said, yeah, that's right, Alex. It's a special knife. He said, can I see it? And I looked at him and I turned it around so that I had. It was handing him the handle, and I started to hand him the handle, and I said, you just remember, Alex, I have a gun, too. And I handed him the knife, and I took a couple of steps back and he looked at it and. And then he handed it back to me, and. And it was like, after that, I didn't have a whole lot of. I didn't have a whole lot of trouble with Alex.

[Julie Cohn]

According to Reid and Mike's debriefing notes, Yurchenko complained a lot about his security detail. Here's a bit Yurchenko complained about the guards, whom he described as young, inexperienced, and unaccustomed to wearing guns. Yurchenko was not allowed out of their sight if he were out of the house, which bothered him a great deal. He complained about being a prisoner. Yurchenko asked the debriefers on a few occasions to speak to the guards about openly displaying their weapons. He said that it would be embarrassing to him if a stranger came and saw them with their guns. It's interesting because I can see this from both sides, right? Yurchenko was a rising colonel, which, especially in the corruption of the Communist Party in those days, meant he really got special treatment. He could fly all over the world when no one else in the country was allowed to leave. He had money. He had thousands of people working for him. So Yurchenko wanted to be treated like a vip, or at least like someone the CIA trusted and didn't need to micromanage. His ego and his pride did not mix well with the young guards who were trying their best to do their job and found him quirky, grumpy, and even funny. At one point, the guards took him shopping for bedroom slippers. Unaccustomed to the concept of a mall, Yurchenko was overwhelmed by choice. The guards got antsy because staying in one place for Too long was a security liability. And eventually they just made a decision for him and grabbed a random pair of slippers. Yurchenko did not love that.

[David Major]

It was kind of like that with everything. It was like he wanted jeans and he wanted Levi's. Took him to a place to get Levi jeans. He picked which kind he wanted and picked the size he thought he wore. And I said to him, I said, why don't you go try those on, Alex? I said, I'll be right outside. I said, go try those on. No, no, they will fit. They will fit. And of course, he bought, like, three pairs and none of them fit. So we told him, alex, give him back to us. We'll take them back. We'll get you the right size. And he wouldn't do it. And so he would just sit with his pants unbuttoned.

[Julie Cohn]

Dan says there were a few rather unfortunate, if humorous, mishaps that also did not go over too well with Yurchenko. Now, remember, the guards were in their twenties. So one night after Yurchenko went to bed, Dan tried to make himself a grilled cheese sandwich, only he set off the fire alarm. This one was hardwired. You couldn't just pull out the batteries. You had to, like, break it apart, basically.

[David Major]

So I went back to the stove, and I hear footsteps coming down the stairs. And standing in the doorway of the kitchen is Yurchenko in his boxer shorts with his hands on his hips, just staring at me. And he goes, done. You will not cook anymore tonight. And I said. I said, alex, I said, I'm really sorry. I said, I apologize. I said, I'm not. Go back to bed, Alex. It's fine. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. And so he, like, turned around, kind of like in a huff, and I hear footsteps going back up the stairs. So one o'clock, we change shifts, and the new bodyguard comes on duty, and there's no tv. He's got about as far in the book as he can stand to read that that night. And so in the basement, we had a big basement, and we had a dartboard set up in the basement. So he goes down into the basement, and his name is John. John's throwing darts into the dartboard. And then that gets kind of boring. So he starts backing up and throwing the. The darts harder and harder. And he keeps backing up further and further until he's literally at the other end of the basement and he's wailing these darts at the dartboard, and he's missing the dartboard, and he's Hitting the wall. And that wall is the one wall that went straight up into Yurchenko's bedroom and was right by his headboard. So all he could hear, all Yurchenko could hear is as these darts are hitting the wall. So Yurchenko comes downstairs, it goes into the basement, same thing, in his box of shorts, his hands on his hips. And he's looking at John, and he goes, john, you have all day to play darts. You must play darts now. You must. 3:00 in the morning. You must play darts now. And John says, alex, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'll put the darts away. Go back to bed. I apologize. And so John had no idea that, you know, I had woken him up with a fire alarm. And so the next day, Rochford came to do debriefings. And Yurchenko goes up to Rochford. He says, mike Dubois, they keep me up all night last night. This is your plan? No.

[Julie Cohn]

Mike remembers it, too.

[Ronald Kessler]

Yurchenko would sometimes take me aside because I was the youngest, debrief it there and say, oh, Mike, you gotta go talk to this guard. You know, tell him not to do this, or that is okay. But. And. And then I. I go down and I. At first, I took it real seriously. I'd start kind of lecturing. And then I realized this is, you know, So I go down and go, okay, I'm down here. I'm spanking you, just so you know. I'm. I'm telling you, you're doing bad job, but you're doing a great job. Don't worry, because this guy's being a jerk. And. And, you know, and we don't laugh and. But try not to play darts at midnight or whatever, you know, because that wakes them up. And, you know, they were. They were just perfect. They were good guards.

[Julie Cohn]

He was finicky about the guards and sometimes annoyed with them, but he also showed them kindness. He could be dark and broody, sure, but also almost avuncular. Here's John Fitzpatrick again.

[Ronald Kessler]

You know, there was a certain affinity he had for. For us being security guys. And I use that term, my term. Not something he did, but. But because he was a security officer, he understood our roles and. And the idea of, you know, shifts and coverage and being there four days at a time. And so he was alternately annoyed with us or hospitable to us, depending on his mood, because we were in the house with him. Somebody was in the house with him all the time. So here, my boys, let's have something to eat. We'll sit together in the kitchen and we'll do that. So he was, you know, you know, those are aspects of his, you know, humanity. He was also. He would brood and not want anything to do with anybody and, you know, walk ahead of you even as you were walking with him around the property. He'd want to be, you know, alone at times. So he had, you know, he had moods and. And they were, you know, at each end of the spectrum. I remember one night we were out for a walk. The sky was clear and there was a prominent moon. And he told me a story about how to tell whether the moon was waxing or waning. And he said, you take your right hand and if you could hold your hand up to the crescent moon and cup it like a woman's breast, then it is waxing. The moment of, you know, him. Here's a guy in his mid-50s and, you know, guy in his 20s, and he's telling his. This, this, this tale. And he might have told me that this was what he learned from his father or he learned from someone. And he's passing down this sort of way of doing it. And I'm thinking, here's the absurdity of this man talking to me about cupping a woman's breast. It's funny and it shows a certain. I'm wistful about that memory, I guess, because it's so goofy. But it also shows that he had a more human side to him.

[Julie Cohn]

There was one CIA officer whom Yurchenko took a real shine to. Rick, his other debriefer, who was known as Phil. Phil spoke some Russian, which put Yurchenko at ease. Not enough to conduct the debrief in Russian, but enough to get by in conversations that Yurchenko really enjoyed. When Yurchenko had learned that Phil would be taking a day off for his wedding, he wrote a message on a five ruble note and presented it to Phil as a wedding present. Dear Phil, it said, on the day of your wedding, I wish you to be happy and lucky. He signed it Alex.

[David Major]

He got along very well with Phil. That was his handler. He got along remarkably well. And in fact, before Phil went on to his next overseas assignment, he brought his wife to the safe house one day to have dinner with Yurchenko. This was a big thing for Yurchenko. I mean, we. Literally every piece of food in the house went on that table because he liked Phil and he wanted to be very respectful toward, toward the wife. So he got along well with Phil.

[Julie Cohn]

The fact that Phil brought his bride, who lacked Security clearance to the top secret safe house was definitely against the rules of secrecy. That makes a safe house safe. At first, the FBI and Phil's bosses at the CIA were furious. But it was clear that one guy wasn't pissed at all. And that guy was Vitaly Yurchenko, who for the first time felt like a real human being having a couple over to his house for dinner. Phil's bosses could quickly tell it had made a big positive difference in Yurchenko's demeanor, and they allowed the exception. Unfortunately for Yurchenko, Phil was only able to stay on the case for the first few weeks. He departed for language training to prepare him for his next assignment in Rome. While all this is going on, let's not forget that Yurchenko thinks he is dying of cancer. Or at least says he thinks that and it's not going over too well with some people in the safe house. What was this stomach thing? How real was it? At Ameca Insurance, we know it's more.

[David Major]

Than just a house. It's your home.

[Julie Cohn]

The place that's filled with memories.

[David Major]

The early days of figuring it out.

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[Julie Cohn]

After Phil left, acting as Yurchenko's only CIA debriefer began to weigh on Colin, who was working seven days a week and whose patience was growing thinner, especially with Yurchenko's constant complaints about his stomach.

[Ronald Kessler]

So a lot of the I'm not feeling well. My stomach hurts.

[Julie Cohn]

As far as I can tell, Yurchenko had some form of stress induced gastritis. But he believed, or at least he said he believed, that he was dying of stomach cancer and refused to accept any diagnosis or prescription other than his own.

[Ronald Kessler]

He wanted these little black specks of something or other that only you can get in the Soviet Union except in Coney island in New York. So we had to send a cable up. I think The FBI did it for us, but they had to send a cable up to New York, sending somebody out to Coney island to get these little medicine things. Everybody's saying, what are you doing that for? So he kissed this little tin of this tiny little buck. I don't know if they worked it out, but he said they did. So. Typical hypochondriacal approach to things.

[Julie Cohn]

Fun fact. I looked into these seeds. The National Institute of Health did a study in 2008 concluding that, though, quote, folkloric in its origin, black seed significantly prevented gastric ulcer formation. Particular eccentric and perhaps annoying, though he may have been entirely crazy, Yurchenko was not. Here's author Ronald Kessler. Again, he criticized the CIA's treatment of Yurchenko and Colin's impatience with Yurchenko's health in particular.

[Ronald Kessler]

Yurchenko had an upset stomach, an irritable stomach, and there was some basis for it, but he worried that he had cancer, and he didn't accept the doctor's reassurance that it was just this minor stomach issue. So he was always worried about them. That's something that Colin Thompson would make fun of behind his back.

[Julie Cohn]

To be fair to Colin, doctors did actually diagnose Yurchenko with hypochondria. It took some digging. I can't believe this. I was able to find the first doctor who treated Yurch.

[Ronald Kessler]

My name is Sam Harrington. I was a practicing gastroenterologist in Washington, dc.

[Julie Cohn]

Sam had a contract with the CIA, almost always to treat CIA employees, very rarely a CIA asset. In his entire career, he had only treated three assets, and the first of them was Vitaly Archenko. As a result, he says he remembers it well before the patient's arrival. The CIA had described the man's abdominal issues and asked what tests they should get done beforehand. When they came in, they had the results of his blood panels.

[Ronald Kessler]

Late summer. I was asked if I would be willing to see a person described as very important, a very important asset under curious circumstances. The person came in with three handlers. One man came into the my office with the patient, who was dressed, I thought, I remember heavy clothes, an obvious wig, and as I said, makeup by Dutch Boy paint. I mean, it was. You could not, not, not see it. It was just one of those things you couldn't look away from. But that's how they do it. Okay.

[Julie Cohn]

And so you're with a straight face. Now you're looking at this man in clown makeup, more or less correct?

[Ronald Kessler]

Yeah. And I really had to try and keep a straight face.

[Julie Cohn]

He's told that he's talking to a Swiss banker. Sam had been told that Yurchenko's mother died of cancer, but the patient showed no signs of cancer himself.

[Ronald Kessler]

My final diagnosis was that he was hypochondriacal. My overwhelming impression was that he was. He had no medical issues of importance that his symptoms were not consistent with any disease. That of importance that he was very suggestible.

[Julie Cohn]

When you say suggestible, what does that mean?

[Ronald Kessler]

It means that whatever I offered as a, as a, as a potential co. Symptom, he had it, you know. Well, sir. Mr. So and so. Do your teeth itch? Yes. You know, as I do. Your stools glow in the dark? Yes. Does this hurt here? Yes.

[Julie Cohn]

Sam Harrington had seen many people who tried to fake pain for drug seeking reasons and said that Yurchenko's behavior was different.

[Ronald Kessler]

I didn't think he was play acting. I think he was genuinely a hypochondriac who's looking for a reason to be in my office or who's looking for something, whatever hypochondriasis leads to in terms of a need. So, you know, there's certain ways to palpate the abdomen that sort of let you know that the patient is faking it without really, they're not faking it as in drug seeking, which is one reason to fake things, but faking it as in, well, maybe this will get me more tests, maybe this will get me more attention, maybe this will get me more involved.

[Julie Cohn]

Sam had done all of those. He was never asked to do any follow up visits and he was worried he hadn't made his overall concerns loud enough.

[Ronald Kessler]

I thought he was totally unreliable and that as what we call a historian and that the agency should know that. And I somehow I couched that in diplomatic medical terms, hoping that they would call me and say, why? Which is what you're doing now. But my memory was fresher at the time and I would have been able to answer more accurately. All I can say is that I found him to be completely unconvincing in terms of any medical issue.

[Julie Cohn]

After his meeting with Sam Harrington, Yurchenko would insist on seeing a variety of other specialists. Reid Bros was sure that the stomach issues were related to Yurchenko's stress, particularly at the first safe house where Reid points out he had every reason to feel nervous about being killed. Though his stomach got slightly better once they were in the peaceful countryside at Coventry, Yurchenko still insisted on cooking quite peculiar food. Most of the time he was in.

[David Major]

The States, he was convinced he had stomach Cancer. And we took him to all kinds of doctors, and of course, he didn't have stomach cancer, but he never believed the doctors. He was certain that he had stomach cancer. And, you know, the food he used to eat was so bland. It was horrible. And like, initially, when we were at the old safe house, the original safe house, we offered to bring in a cook, and he didn't want to cook. I'll make my own food. Well, he had. He had this penchant for cow tongue. And it was the most disgust because he would take this huge cow tongue and he would put it in a. In a pot and boil it for hours. And of course, the skin on. On it would start shriveling up and everything. And I have to say this, the psychologists that. That we had on the team, and we became very good friends after that, worked together for years after that. He passed away not too long ago. But he had a great sense of humor. He was a extremely funny individual. He came into the safe house one day when Yurchenko was boiling this cow tongue. And I called him by his name, and I said, hey, take a look at what's for dinner. And I lifted the lid on the pot, and he looked into the lid, and he looked back real quick, and pardon the expression, but he said, God damn, by tomorrow we'll be eating donkey dick. We all started laughing, and of course, Yurchenko would expect us to eat with him. And it was like, oh, my God, I would never eat it. I would never eat it. But one of my colleagues decided he was going to eat with him and must have put a half gallon of ketchup on that cow tongue before he ate it.

[Julie Cohn]

Here's Mike Rochford.

[Ronald Kessler]

He made us eat this beef tongue crap that he made every day for lunch.

[David Major]

It was.

[Ronald Kessler]

God almighty. It was terrible.

[Julie Cohn]

You ate it.

[Ronald Kessler]

Well, not always. Sometimes I go, oh, my God, pull a mustard on it. You could eat anything, right? But it was terrible.

[Julie Cohn]

While at the safe house, Yurchenko was finding his footing and friendship with the FBI, keeping some distance with the CIA, Disgusting all who tried to eat with him and bemusing his doctors. Meanwhile, the SE Division was dealing with the fallout of his first revelation. And it was not, shall we say, going well. I'm talking about the mole Yurchenko had revealed back in Rome. A CIA traitor that Yurchenko knew only as Mr. Robert. It had been obvious to the SE leadership that the man he was describing was a CIA officer named Edward Lee Howard. But the thing was, capturing Ed Howard was becoming a nightmare. One where Everything seemed to be going wrong. Was that a coincidence?

[Ronald Kessler]

Welcome back to Listen to youo Heart. I'm Jerry.

[David Major]

And I'm Jerry's heart.

[Ronald Kessler]

Today's topic, Repatha Evolocumab Heart.

[Julie Cohn]

Why'd you pick this one?

[Ronald Kessler]

Well, Jerry, for people who have had.

[David Major]

A heart attack like us, diet and exercise might not be enough to lower the risk of another one.

[Ronald Kessler]

Okay.

[David Major]

To help know if we're at risk, we should be getting our ldlc, our bad cholesterol checked and talking to our doctor.

[Ronald Kessler]

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[David Major]

And if it's still too high, Repatha.

[Julie Cohn]

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[David Major]

Lower our LDL C and our heart attack risk.

[Julie Cohn]

Hmm.

[Ronald Kessler]

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[Julie Cohn]

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[Ronald Kessler]

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[Julie Cohn]

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[David Major]

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[Ronald Kessler]

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[Julie Cohn]

There was a lot about the Edward Lee Howard case that was not great for the CIA. Ed Howard had been trained to go to Moscow. And at the last minute, after being taught about taw, the cable tapping operation we talked about in episode one, and about several valuable Soviet assets, including Vanquish. Howard failed his polygraph not once, but three times. He lied about recreational drug use, heavy drinking, cheating during some of his training at the Farm. And it turns out he had even stolen money out of a woman's purse on a plane for the thrill of it. Also not great was that the CIA had made the mistake of firing Howard. He was a reckless, highly trained officer who knew tons of classified intelligence. And now he had an axe to grind. And there were quite a few axe grinding moments that the CIA should have warned the FBI about. To clarify that a little, the CIA is not an organization that can arrest people. It has no law enforcement function. It's an intelligence gathering agency. The FBI, however, does have that power. Also by law, the CIA is specifically prohibited from collecting foreign intelligence about the domestic activities of U.S. citizens. The FBI is a domestic intelligence agency, and it can spy on Americans. So when the CIA suspected that one of its former American employees living in America might be a threat to national security, the protocol would have been to tell the FBI, who could get a wiretap, gather the proof they needed, and make an arrest. Now, in the case of Edward Howard, the CIA might have alerted the FBI, say, when Howard made belligerent, drunk crank calls to the CIA's Moscow station after he was fired. It didn't. It probably should have told the FBI that Howard's alcohol use had worsened and that he was arrested for discharging his firearm in a bar fight, almost shooting a college student. Things got so bad that the agency arranged for psychiatric treatment for Howard. Howard admitted to a psychiatrist that he had once considered walking into the Soviet embassy to defect. And still the CIA never told the FBI. I spoke with David Major, a former senior FBI executive and the founder and president of the CI Center, Counterintelligence center, the nation's leading counterintelligence training and education firm, where David also teaches. At the time of our story, in 1985, David Major was at the White House serving as the Director of Intelligence at the National Security Council, personally debriefing President Reagan on all matters of intelligence. I met David in his home in Delaware where he, his wife, and their incredibly friendly hound Ruby, live in a peaceful community near the water. He remembered Ed Howard and the reason it was a challenge to catch him very well. The CIA, he explains, had sat on their intel about Howard in part because they were embarrassed.

[Ronald Kessler]

The reason I didn't tell him everything is that they had screwed this case up. They had had some information on him. They did not, and they just chose not to tell us because it was embarrassing to them. Because when they decided to fire him, they didn't tell us about the guys.

[Julie Cohn]

A big part of this was the lack of trust between the agencies and their rivalry generally. The FBI resents the CIA for being elitist Ivy Leaguers who make their living breaking rules in countries all over the world. The CIA resents the FBI for being blue collar, bureaucratic rule followers with a loose definition of need to know confidentiality.

[Ronald Kessler]

We could spend many hours talking about how much the FBI and CIA hate each other. You know, the CIA sees itself as being the smarter, more, you know, we know languages, we can live overseas. And FBI agents are seen as kind of, you know, unsophisticated beer swilling or even Worse, teetotaling Mormons who don't really.

[David Major]

Know anything about the world and aren't sophisticated.

[Julie Cohn]

That was Stephen Engelberg again, the New York Times intelligence reporter at the time. Not only would the CIA have to admit to its sibling rival, the FBI, that it had been betrayed by one of its own, and not only would it have to come clean about its hubris in keeping certain red flags from the FBI, but as if that wasn't bad enough, on top of it, they'd have to very awkwardly admit that this mole they now needed to capture was one of the most highly trained spies in the agency. See, Ed Howard had taken the CIA's internal operations, or IO course, which is basically the CIA's version of top Gun. It was a course for elite officers who had been selected to work in what they call hostile environments. Places with oppressive surveillance like East Berlin or Moscow or China. In the course, officers learned real James Bondi stuff. They learned about brush passes where you walk by someone on the street and you hand them something but nobody can see it. Or dead drops where you conceal a package and leave it somewhere secretly for an agent to pick up later. They learn evasive driving. They learn about costumes and prosthetics. And most importantly, they learn how to spot surveillance and how to evade that surveillance without the surveillant realizing until it's too late. To teach that specific skill, the CIA partnered with with the FBI. FBI agents taught courses at the Farm about their own surveillance techniques. And then their agents would tail the IO students to help them practice spotting surveillance and shaking it off. David Major mentioned he himself had taught FBI surveillance techniques at the IO course. I was a little dumbfounded. And then I wondered, had David been teaching when Edward Lee Howard was a student? Did you? You personally trained him on surveillance? To protection?

[Ronald Kessler]

Yeah.

[Julie Cohn]

I'm sorry, what? How small of a world is this? How good of a student was he?

[Ronald Kessler]

He doesn't have a seat. Nothing special. They flunk them out of the course. If they can't get through that, it's a flunk out course. It's the SEAL training for CIA officers. It's like SEALS training. If you don't make it through, they'll take an entire class and they'll fire. They won't certify them. That's very rigid training.

[Julie Cohn]

Ed Howard was not only a deadly liability, a mole who needed to be caught before he could do any more harm, but the fact that he took the IO course meant he was also a mole who was trained by members of the FBI. In this Case, David Major himself, specifically to evade the FBI. Though the CIA told the FBI immediately what Yurchenko had told them, the description of Mr. Robert, because of how much of an embarrassment it all was, they did not add that they were pretty immediately sure that that description matched the identity of a man named Edward Lee Howard for a few more days until they could be really sure. Then, once the FBI was alerted to his identity, the bureau was slow to get moving on the warrants. And in the meantime, Howard was able to rush away for a sudden trip to Europe. He told his boss that his grandmother had passed away, and he flew to Zurich, then Vienna. Only Vienna is where Howard had first met with his KGB handlers, and Howard's grandma was very much still alive. If the KGB hadn't been behind Yurchenko's defection in Rome, they would have at least known that he disappeared there and was unaccounted for. And since Yurchenko had handled Howard, the KGB needed to warn their American asset that there was a chance he might be in danger. And they managed to do it all before the FBI had even begun to tail him. And by the time he returned from Europe, Once the FBI did begin their surveillance, Howard noticed it pretty much instantly. The undercover agents working on a pothole near his house, the plane circling overhead, and he immediately began to craft an escape plan. On Friday, Sept. 20, 1985, about two months after Yurchenko had outed him on first arrival, Howard walked up to a man in the produce section of the grocery store who was supposed to be inconspicuously tailing him and suggested a meeting with the FBI. On Monday, he realized they were onto him, and he thought if he cooperated, maybe they would go easier on him. Or at least that was the lie he told to lull the FBI into a false sense of security. The next morning, Edward Lee Howard and his wife Mary Howard drove around looking for an ideal place for Ed to escape, using a top secret technique he had learned in the IO course.

[Ronald Kessler]

One of the things that was used at that time, and it's in a number of books and things now so we can talk about it, is the Jack in the box.

[Julie Cohn]

That was John Seifer. You met him last episode. And not only did John take the I. O. Course, he also served as station chief in Moscow, where he implemented that training. Plus, he's also been an instructor at the Farm, the CIA's covert training facility.

[Ronald Kessler]

And so what would happen is someone like Ed Reed, Howard or whatever would be driving, watching where their surveillance are, manipulating them, going over a Ridge or turning a corner at a certain point. And then the person in the passenger seat would get out and flee into the bushes or down a staircase or something like that. And then the driver would continue on. So that when the surveillance car got into a place to see again, it would look like nothing happened. And what the driver would do is deploy this thing out of a gym bag. And it would pop up like a jack in the box. And it had essentially an incredibly well developed mask with a hat or whatever, exactly what that person was wearing. So that a surveillance car, as driving behind, would see what was there before. Two people in the car. And they had a little button that could turn the head and things. So that car would then continue to drive on. And take surveillance away from where the person who escaped is. So that person who has escaped would then make sure that they're not under surveillance. And go meet a source or in.

[Julie Cohn]

This case, flee the country. That night, Ed and Mary called their babysitter. And headed to a restaurant for a dinner date. On their way home, Mary drove around the specific blind corner they had selected. As she did, her husband rolled out of the moving vehicle. And their very homemade version of a jack in the box bounced up to take his place in the passenger seat. They had made this thing with a mop stick, a hanger with his coat on it, and a wig. When Mary got home, the men in the surveillance van watched her pull into the garage. And just as the couple hoped, mistook the dummy for her husband.

[Ronald Kessler]

They saw what they think was Howard in the car. It was the jib, but they thought it was Howard because there were two silhouettes. You pull the car in, there's two silhouettes, two people. So we think he's still there.

[Julie Cohn]

Later, much to the dismay of the Bureau, it would come out that Howard's hijinks that evening hadn't even been entirely necessary. David Major explains that actually, the FBI had never seen Howard leave for dinner.

[Ronald Kessler]

So he's. He's not under surveillance. He should have been, but he wasn't. Now, there's a reason for that. Not a good reason, but the real reason. I'm not sure you should put this in the. In the thing. I'm not sure. Let me tell you about it. When he gets back home with his wife and they're going to leave to go to dinner, she calls her girlfriend, the babysitter, and starts telling her girlfriend what she and her boyfriend had done the night before.

[Julie Cohn]

The babysitter calls her friend and talks about what the babysitter has been doing with her boyfriend.

[Ronald Kessler]

That's right. But they're using Howard's phone. So the FBI's listening and what do they hear? Some pretty graphic discussion. And as a result, the person listens to the phone, is really interested in it, and just at that time, they pull out, they leave.

[Julie Cohn]

So where the jack in the box worked perfectly was in reassuring the surveillance team that while they had missed the couple leaving, all was well, they thought, when they watched what appeared to be both husband and wife returning from dinner.

[Ronald Kessler]

Well, at least he's here. That's okay. We didn't lose him.

[Julie Cohn]

Later that evening, Mary Howard did as instructed by her husband and called his psychiatrist's phone number. When the answering machine told her to leave a message, she played a pre recorded tape of her husband requesting to see his doctor. That week. The FBI surveillance sitting in the van outside was satisfied that Howard was turning in for the evening when in fact, he was on his way to the airport. By the time the FBI finally realized Edward Lee Howard was missing, he was already in Helsinki. To recap here, Batali Yurchenko told us about two moles, and that is a huge deal. But one of them had slipped right through the FBI's fingers. So was it coincidence that the first Mol Yurchenko revealed just happened to escape? Edward Lee Howard lived out the rest of his days in Moscow as the KGB's prized American defector. Meanwhile, back at the safe house, America's prized Soviet defector, Vitaly Archenko, decided it was finally time to tell his handlers something else. Something big. He wanted the CIA to help reunite him with the love of his life, Valentina. The thing is, Valentina was married to her Soviet diplomat husband and lived in Montreal, Canada. So Yurchenko asked the CIA to secretly smuggle him over the border into Canada, help him meet with Valentina without her husband knowing, and then arrange for Valentina's defection to America, including all of her papers. What could possibly go wrong? More on that next time on the Redefector. The Redefector is a production of Waveland. I'm Julie Kohn and I wrote and created the series. Jason Hoak is the executive producer and he also produced and edited the series. Shane Freeman is our sound engineer. Additional production assistance provided by Leo Culp Music by Robert Ellis. If you love the series, please make sure to leave a review and to tell a friend. Follow Waveland on Instagram @wavelandmedia for more information on this series and more. Thanks for listening.

[Ronald Kessler]

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[Julie Cohn]

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[Ronald Kessler]

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[David Major]

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[Ronald Kessler]

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