← The Redefector
The Redefector
Valentina | Chapter 5
00:44:09
Yurchenko travels to Canada to be reunited with the love of his life, but plans go awry...
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- [00:00]
Julie Kohn
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- [01:00]
David Major
CA.
- [01:06]
Dan Payne
I had heard something about the woman. Within the first month of his defection, he had had a relationship with the the wife of a Russian diplomat that was currently assigned in Canada. I didn't know the extent of the relationship. As the date started getting closer and closer that he was going to go to Canada and we were going to set it up so he could pitch her to come back with him. It was obvious that his idea CIA was going to pay him a lot of money, which we did. Then he was going to go up and get the love of his life, this woman who was married to another diplomat, bring her back to the US and they would live happily ever after.
- [01:49]
Julie Kohn
Until such time that he died of cancer.
- [01:51]
Dan Payne
Yes, that was the plan.
- [01:53]
Julie Kohn
Back in the 70s when Vitaly Yurchenko had been stationed in D.C. and worked at the Soviet Embassy there, he became friends with a blue eyed ash blonde Soviet woman named Valentyna Yaraskovskaya. Valentina was also a well respected pediatrician who was very empathetic by all accounts. Her relationship with Yurchenko had started out platonically, with long walks and deep conversations, sometimes over McDonald's hamburgers they would eat together in the park. Over time, that friendship had allegedly blossomed into an affair. The FBI had watched Vitale and Valentina together and listened as they sometimes spoke on the phone. I asked David Major, the head of intelligence at the National Security Council at that time, about it. Did you, the FBI know that they had been lovers in D.C. before?
- [02:43]
David Major
Yeah, well, we heard them talk on the telephone way back when.
- [02:50]
Julie Kohn
Wow. And it was loving.
- [02:52]
David Major
Well, that's how we understood it maybe there was just. Maybe they were. They were interested in little children and they wanted to protect them. I don't know. What do you think? Let's not be naive about this.
- [03:06]
Julie Kohn
The two had continued to see each other back in Moscow after they had both returned from their postings in the US and if we were to believe him at his word here, Vitaly Yurchrenko was five years later taking a leap of faith and pursuing his great love across the Iron Curtain before it was too late. From Waveland I'm Julie Kohn and this is the Redefector. This is chapter five. Valentina the author Ronald Kessler was able to interview Jean Boisaver, the Jaraskovsky's neighbor in Montreal in 1985. Boivaire was a 62 year old writer and film producer who described Valentina as, quote, gorgeous, adding that she was, quote, of ideal proportions with curves in the right places. Valentina was always more talkative than her husband, he said, and she often wore trendy boots, miniskirts and designer glasses. He described her husband, Alexander or Alex, as a, quote, tall and very good looking man, a mustache a la Clark Gable or Robert Taylor. I appreciate that he objectified them both. Also, let's all appreciate the fact that Vitalyarchenko chose Alex as his CIA codename. Though he hadn't told David when he first walked into the embassy in Rome, and though he kept it from his own debriefers for a little while, this affair with Valentina seemed to be one of the reasons the Soviet colonel had chosen to defect in the first place. Here's Dan Payne again. How did it come up that maybe he hatched this plan or did someone suggest that he find a partner or.
- [05:07]
Dan Payne
No, just out of the blue, this was something that. This was something that. This was part of his personal plan on what was going to happen with his life.
- [05:20]
Julie Kohn
So you think it was part of his plan before he even came to America?
- [05:24]
Dan Payne
I think so, yeah.
- [05:26]
Julie Kohn
Here's Milt Bearden, the Deputy Chief of the SE Division.
- [05:30]
David Major
He wanted to be reunited with his beloved girl that he'd had a fling with when he was in Washington before. It was part of his whole because she was out of the ussr, up, just up across the border in Canada and he had it all figured out. He'll come here, get taken care of completely get his beloved girl, and it'll be all just no problem and happily ever after.
- [05:58]
Julie Kohn
He waited several weeks after his initial defection to reveal to his FBI debriefer and friend Mike Rochford, that he still loved Valentina, he said, well, you know.
- [06:07]
Mike Rochford
Mike, he said, I had a girlfriend when I was here. And I don't remember if he said he had an affair with her in the Washington or when he went back. I don't remember. But it was clear that he had a relationship and it was, you know, a full boy relationship with her. He's very affectionate toward her and, you know, love of his life, and she understood him and all that stuff. I mean, it was all that stuff that guys never talk about.
- [06:41]
Julie Kohn
But he talked to you about it?
- [06:43]
Mike Rochford
He talked to me and Reid about it, yeah.
- [06:46]
Julie Kohn
Maybe. When Yurchenko's mother died of cancer, it was a wake up call to him about the brevity of his own life, especially considering he feared he was dying of the same disease. If you only had limited time on earth, wouldn't you want to spend that time with the love of your life? Here's Colin Thompson. Okay, but at a certain point, you decide, well, he's kind of earned this, or what's the thinking there?
- [07:12]
David Major
Well, no, we want him happy for whatever, however good or bad he was. We had obligations to him. We wanted him to stay here. We wanted him, if we could, to be happy, to have a decent life. And so when he came up with the idea, we didn't have any great suggestions, you know, yes, we can. We can. We had. We know Russian speaking women, they're perfectly decent women. They're not married. You know, maybe you could. At least you could talk to him in Russian. But he didn't take to that.
- [07:56]
Julie Kohn
They quickly located Valentina's address in Montreal. She and her husband lived in a brick high rise on a hill that led up to Mount Royal park and down to the Ritz Carlton. The only problem was that Valentina wasn't actually in the country. Some early surveillance revealed that she was in Moscow. She had been there since July, when it appears she and Yurchenko had spent time together before he left for rome. While the U.S. and Canadian intelligence services waited for her return, which was expected in about a week, Colin made sure Yurchenko understood that he and Valentina would be taken care of. Yurchenko would be receiving a salary of $62,500 a year for life, roughly what a full army colonel made at the time. He would also be able to keep all the furniture in the safe house that he had picked out and would get insurance and a car. After much discussion at headquarters, it was decided that in addition, the CIA would offer him a bonus of $1 million, tax free, to help show the country's gratitude for his service. In return for the payments, Yurchenko signed a contract agreeing to continue to cooperate with the CIA and do nothing to harm the interests of the United States. Once Valentyna and her husband came back to Canada, Canadian intelligence studied the couple's movements. Three days a week, Valentina and Alexander walked to the Soviet consulate together. Valentina had her pediatrician office hours, and she and Alexander returned together at noon for their lunch at their apartment. On September 26, however, Alexander was to attend a luncheon outside the consulate, and the Canadians decided that would be the best window for Yurchenko's visit. As he prepared to leave for Canada, Yurchenko was thrilled. Here's his bodyguard, Dan, remembering his mood before he set out.
- [09:43]
Dan Payne
Oh, he's very excited, very excited to be going up there. Almost, almost giddy, if you will, about going up there.
- [09:49]
Julie Kohn
Colin says they flew Yurchenko to an air force base in New York near the Canadian border. They figured it would be easier to smuggle him over the border without papers than to do so at an airport. And they were right. Soon they were in Canada, driving north. Yurchenko and Colin both had rooms that night in the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal. Yurchenko was so excited, he barely slept as he opened the paper, still giddy and even more excited for the day he froze. At the bottom of the front page of the Montreal Gazette, a three column headline read, high ranking KGB officer defected, US Officials say in it, the article said Vitaly Durchenko dropped from site in Rome on July 24 and is believed to be supplying the CIA with identities of scores of agents and disinformation specialists. The story had actually broken the day before in the Washington Times in a column written by Ralph Di Toledano with the headline the Missing KGB link, which was paired with a second article in the news section that had an even more condemning headline, Number five man for KGB now singing to the CIA. In it, de Toledano mentions the recent frenzy in the espionage community and asked whether there might be a reason for it all. He writes, and there was. That reason is named Vitaly Durchenko or Jirchenko. Choose your own transliteration of the Cyrillic. The number five man in the kgb. He holds in his head the identities of scores of Soviet agents in Europe and of the additional thousands of sleepers, not to mention those witting and unwitting individuals whose job it is to spread disinformation and confusion in the West. Others who have broken with the Kremlin since, quote, knew only a fraction of what Vitaly Archenko knew, he added, these articles were Vitaly Yurchenko's worst nightmare. It was a violation of the only thing he had asked the CIA for in return for his defection at the outset. He had made it clear from the moment he walked into the US Embassy in Rome. And he had continued to make it clear to each of his debriefers once he arrived. Here's Colin, one of his CIA debriefers.
- [12:15]
David Major
The one thing he didn't want, or one of the few things he didn't want, was his name in public, which could confirm the fact that he had defected and that then his family would then be subjected to retaliation.
- [12:29]
Julie Kohn
And here's Reid, his FBI debriefer.
- [12:32]
David Major
He did not want the KGB to know where he was. If they can't find me, if they can't know where I am, then I'm not dead. If they find me and know that I'm alive and I'm talking, they will go against my family. And he had his wife and his son. And we did discuss that.
- [13:02]
Julie Kohn
Here's Ronald Kessler.
- [13:04]
David Major
I think the biggest slap in the face was that the one condition he laid down for his defection in cooperation with the CIA was that his defection would not be made known publicly. In other words, the KGB would be left to wonder what happened to him. Did he fall off a cliff? Did he commit suicide? Because Yachenko did not want any repercussions to blow back on his family in Russia. And if it got out that he really had defected, the family could face a lot of retribution and punishment.
- [13:54]
Julie Kohn
What's particularly horrible about this leak? And though he would deny it until his death, it seems that the director of the CIA himself, Bill Casey, had been the source of the leak.
- [14:06]
David Major
I only met him three or four times, four or five times in his office. All when the crisis, these kind of crises. And he mumbled for real. Very decisive, very decisive. And he understood the spy business as far as I was going, a great director.
- [14:30]
Julie Kohn
It seems like he might have leaked the Yurchenko news that we all thought he would.
- [14:34]
David Major
Yeah, but I mean, everybody screaming. I remember people saying with the fucking seventh floor would shut up. But I don't remember what made us.
- [14:42]
Julie Kohn
Think that the seventh floor was where the bigwigs offices were, including Bill Casey's. Okay, but do you, if you had to guess why he would have done something like that? What would be the logic?
- [14:55]
David Major
Oh, he's a political animal and the Russians and stuff. He wasn't leaking in any kind of way, except he was careless, in my opinion.
- [15:09]
Julie Kohn
Mike Rochford puts it a little more bluntly.
- [15:13]
Mike Rochford
Casey. I mean, that son of bitch, that director of the Agency. Look, we heard from the debriefers and some of the guards who also did guarding for Casey that Casey was at these cocktail parties around Washington, D.C. and he was throwing this shit out about Yurchenko's debriefings. That's where the leaks came from. So I'm sure there are other leaks from other people, but it's like, didn't need it.
- [15:45]
Julie Kohn
Even if the news got out because of a bit of carelessness, it seems Casey also made zero attempts to put the genie back in the bottle. Ronald Kessler had spoken to Ralph Di Toledano's editor, Mary Lou Forbes, back in the 80s. She told Kessler that when Ralph submitted his breaking news story, she reached out immediately to the CIA. Though they never officially comment, in the past, they'd strenuously urged the paper not to run certain stories when the agency worried it might harm ongoing operations or investigations. Mary Lou Forbes called the CIA and waited until George Lauder, the CIA's director of public affairs, could be reached. When he called her back, he simply said, no comment. Forbes double checked with him whether the article wouldn't jeopardize any ongoing operations, but still he said nothing. He did not urge her to hold the story. Kessler believes Casey didn't just accidentally get overheard talking about the story all over the Beltway. He thinks Casey did it on purpose.
- [16:46]
David Major
William Casey let it be known that in fact the guy had defected because he wanted to hold that up as a sign that the CIA was effective and wanted to burnish his own image to the point where when the Washington Times learned about the defection and wanted to do a story, they asked the CIA, do you have any comment? And would a story create any harm or difficulty? And in other words, they were willing to hold the story if they were told that it would be harmful. And what did the CIA do? They came back a few days later and said, no comment. No comment. In other words, confirming everything, confirming that there would be no problem if a story were run. Just really a scandal. A scandal.
- [17:39]
Julie Kohn
Stephen Engelberg wound up reading Ralph Di Toledano's piece in the Washington Times the morning it was published on the 25th, and then researched and reported his own article about Yurchenko, which ran on the front page of the New York Times the following day. Overnight, it had become a huge story.
- [17:56]
David Major
My story, I mean, it was quickly recognized as an important thing. I mean, this story Was, you know, lead to the paper was the most important story in the next day's New York Times.
- [18:05]
Julie Kohn
Stephen had not received the tip from a source. In fact, in his article, he credited the Washington Times for breaking the scoop. I asked him about where he thought the leak might have originated.
- [18:16]
David Major
I mean, I have always suspected, must have been Casey that put this out. There was a constant effort to get a bigger budget, burnish the reputation of the CIA. Casey was in no way a kind of career buttoned down espionage officer. He wasn't that type. I just think if you think about these leaks, and it's all just speculative here, but if you think about my experience, intelligence is cavalierly handled by people who don't gather it. I think that would be sort of the axiom of my coverage of the CIA, that I would tend to try to find out secrets from people who had not put their lives in personal safety or their colleagues lives on the line to get a piece of information that an actual CIA case officer, let's say for Yurchenko, would be among the last people who would tell you something like this.
- [19:16]
Julie Kohn
While the operation was unfolding, Casey needed a win. Controversy was mounting over the CIA's help in mining Nicaraguan harbors. Plus, as noted, Casey wanted to make sure the agency kept its budget. It's possible, though tragic, that Bill Casey calculated Yurchenko was just the win he needed. In any case, Yurchenko felt gutted, but he didn't have time to dwell on it at that moment. It was time to go to Valentina's home. And nothing, not even a blown cover, was enough to deter him from finally seeing her. 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.
- [20:24]
David Major
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- [20:26]
Mike Rochford
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- [20:28]
David Major
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- [20:33]
Julie Kohn
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- [20:34]
David Major
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- [20:38]
Julie Kohn
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- [20:40]
Mike Rochford
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- [20:41]
David Major
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- [20:53]
Julie Kohn
Expires in six months. Just an hour after he saw his name all over the headlines, Vitale left the lobby of his hotel with Canadian security officers.
- [21:06]
David Major
They took him from the hotel. It was just a few blocks. Walked over there into the building, up to her floor. The Canadian who was with him said, there's your door. You're on your own. And he went and knocked on the door.
- [21:24]
Julie Kohn
The agent stayed at the end of the hall to give Yurchenko some privacy. He knocked on the door, and then she answered. She was every inch as he remembered. Yurchenko told her his circumstances, that he had defected and that he hoped to run away with her should she choose to disappear with him. Their financial future was already fully taken care of. Valentina, looking right at him, turned him down cold. The whole exchange took less than a few minutes. David Major remembers it well.
- [22:01]
David Major
He says, I loved you as a Russian, as a Soviet man, but I hate you as a defector. I never want to see you again. That's as I understand what he said. That's kind of crushing. What do you do? He comes back very, very depressed. Great love of his life projected him. Amazing. She didn't choose to be a defector, and he did, even though they had talked about it, they, you know, when they were lovers in D.C. earlier.
- [22:26]
Julie Kohn
Dan Payne remembers hearing about the incident, too.
- [22:29]
Dan Payne
I wasn't with the team. I wasn't with the team that went to Canada, but I was at the safe house when he got back. So it was. It was interesting, you know, the way I was told by some of my colleagues of what went down was that he made contact with her, and she let him know that the KGB was aware of their relationship and the KGB had interviewed her. The thing that got him was, again, I'm hearing this from my colleagues. She said to him, in my eyes, you are dead. And that was just devastating to Yurchenko, just absolutely devastating.
- [23:15]
Julie Kohn
In other words, she had fallen in love with a colonel, not a traitor. So she said to him, and it. It sounds like people said to you that she told him that KGB knew he was coming or. Or knew that they'd had an affair.
- [23:29]
Dan Payne
They knew about their relationship with each other and that they had interviewed her about that relationship. He disappeared. They knew about the relationship. They interviewed her in. In the event that she might know something about it. Again, her. Her comment, the. The. The big part of the. The conversation was, in my eyes, you are dead. And. And that was absolutely devastating to Yurchenko.
- [23:58]
Julie Kohn
And was that because he was a defector now as opposed to.
- [24:02]
Dan Payne
I'm not quite sure. I'm not quite sure whether she had concerns about her family or. Or whether that was in the past and she wanted to stay with her husband and, you know, raise their family. I don't know why the change of.
- [24:20]
Julie Kohn
Heart at the time. If you were a Soviet diplomat or intelligence agent posted in a western country and you had children older than a toddler, the Soviet policy was to keep your children in the Soviet Union during the duration of your posting abroad. They were kept hostage basically to ensure the return of their parents from the tempting lands abroad. Now, Valentina had two daughters, one of whom had just gotten married that summer in the Soviet Union. I couldn't find the age of her second daughter. Yurchenko also had a 23 year old married daughter and a 14 year old adopted son. Yurchenko had nevertheless been confident that his feelings toward Valentina were mutual and that she would want to ride off into the sunset with him regardless. I guess I'm trying to put myself in her shoes, which is like, if my kids are in Russia, I don't want to.
- [25:10]
Dan Payne
Precisely.
- [25:11]
Julie Kohn
So was it. Is it. I'm just trying to get a read on Yurchenko because I kind of, you know, you knew him. I didn't know him, but like, was this desperation or arrogance or like, how would you describe this concept? That he didn't for a second think that she would hesitate. My producer, Jason Hoak, was sitting with us during this conversation, or he wouldn't.
- [25:31]
Dan Payne
Be the first guy that thought of, you know, things were a lot further with his girlfriend than they actually were.
- [25:40]
Julie Kohn
Kind of the ultimate romantic gesture in some weird ways. Defecting and coming all the way across the world. I really struggle to understand if Yurchenko was deluded or if he had real reason to believe Valentina would have been on board with something like this. On the one hand, it sounds selfish and pretty arrogant to think this woman would wave goodbye forever to her daughters, kick off her heels and run off into the sunset with a known defector on his deathbed, by the way, and in doing so, also become a traitor to her motherland with a target on her back. You know. On the other hand, by many accounts, Yurchenko was a really careful man. He claimed to have been slowly planning this defection for years. He had played the perfect hand in Rome, and after all, he had risen to the fifth highest rank of anyone in the kgb. Maybe Valentina's daughters were old enough to take care of themselves. And since Valentina and Vitaly had met as late as July in Moscow just weeks before he defected, was it possible they had talked through the idea of running away together, and then she had just changed her mind? An FBI source I spoke with said that back in August, when Yurchenko had gone missing, the KGB had questioned Valentyna, wondering if she knew where he might be. And Yurchenko complained to one of his handlers that the KGB must have brainwashed her against him somehow. Mike Rochford found out about Yurchenko's trip to Canada only after Yurchenko returned. The CIA had kept the information about his travel under very tight wraps for security reasons.
- [27:14]
Mike Rochford
We were encouraging. We said, yeah, well, of course, obviously, wonderful girl, and obviously she's loved her kids, so what can you. She wants to be around her kids. Are you stupid? I mean, what do you expect from a mom? You know, if she comes with you, then her chances with her kids are zero. They're not gonna bring their family. I mean, come on, think this out.
- [27:41]
Julie Kohn
Meanwhile, the author, Ronald Kessler, in his book, claims it went down quite differently. He claims that Valentyna let Yurchenko into her apartment, wept, told him she loved him, but just couldn't bear to leave her family and hoped he understood. This painted a really different picture of Yurchenko to me. Made him seem a little less deluded, at least. But it was also so different from what my sources had said. The problem was, neither of our sources had heard the conversation firsthand. Hold on. Did anyone watch? Was the Canadian. Did he kind of give them their. Did he know what happened, or. Does anyone know what happened?
- [28:19]
David Major
Not until he left, no.
- [28:20]
Julie Kohn
And what did he say to you when he got back?
- [28:23]
David Major
Not much. That's one of the problems. We never. He never did talk about it.
- [28:27]
Julie Kohn
Wow. So you. So you don't know?
- [28:29]
David Major
Just that she said no, because people.
- [28:31]
Julie Kohn
Have said there's a lot of. I guess it must just be conjecture. Of what?
- [28:35]
David Major
How would they know? It was. There were two people there, and none of us is one of them. Either of them.
- [28:42]
Julie Kohn
If Yurchenko was a plant from the beginning, was this all a big charade? An elaborate way to make his disappearance later make sense? Or had this van truly intended to come to America for a woman and just misread the situation? It happens to the best of us. Promises we make at night or dreams we share in bed can evaporate in the harsh light of day. One thing we do know for sure, Valentina said no. And as for the details, Colin is right. No one was there except Vitaly Erchenko and Valentyna Yaraskovskaya. So I began to look for Valentina. Only the best will do for Mom. So make Whole Foods Market your Mother's Day destination. Shop the floral department for vibrant blooms like tulips, orchids, peonies, and expert crafted bouquets. Then head to the wellness and beauty department and give Mom a spa like experience with scented candles and more. And if you're hosting brunch or dinner, order flavorful Whole Foods market catering by May 9. Celebrate Mother's Day with Whole Foods Market in store and online at Ameca Insurance, we know it's more than just a house. It's your home. The place that's filled with memories. The early days of figuring it out to the later years of still figuring it out. For the place you've put down roots. Trust Amica Home Insurance. Amica. Empathy is our best policy. Yeah. I searched through archived newspapers, both in Russian and in English, trying to find out if Valentyna had returned to the Soviet Union after this debacle, or if she had even done any interviews. Some papers said she had been sent back to Moscow immediately. But then the Russian Embassy spokesperson said she was not recalled and called the accusation of her infidelity preposterous and incredibly rude. Many agree that she remained in Montreal until her husband's assignment was over, but there is zero information on her after that. I just couldn't find anything definitive about her whereabouts or any way to get in touch with her. And then, months into this research, I suddenly had an idea. What if she was here in the States? Because after all, a lot of Soviet citizens moved west in the early 90s after the fall of the USSR. So I searched for her name and found nothing. But I did see that Alexander Yaraskovsky, her husband, had been a former research fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School from 2000 to 2001. So I searched for his details instead and found a current US address. The report said this man was 87, the right age, and it gave a phone number which rang. No answer. But at the very bottom of the background report, there's a section called Possible Relatives. And that's when I found her. Valentina Yarouskovskaya. I had forgotten the way Russian patronymics work. The ending of what we would call a person's last name is different depending on your gender. I had been searching for Valentyna Yaraskovsky. Armed with this new information, I was finally able to find her and Guys, in an ironic twist, she lives in Washington, D.C. now, alone. Or at least no one else is listed as a resident at that address. The apartment is a stone's throw from Mount Alto, which is now the Russian Embassy. It was a warm October day, like it hadn't quite gotten crisp yet. And my producer, Jason, and I wore in a bright red pickup, the replacement for our first rental, which died on a highway. Oops. We pulled up to a beautiful little brick apartment building with greenery outside. We're in this pickup, which is a whole other story, but we're in our rental, and we're sitting outside what appears to be, according to our research, where Valentina lives. And I feel so weird to just go knock or ring this doorbell and have this woman come down and. And have to say, like, hi, I'm writing this article about arguably the worst week of your life. Do you want to talk? Is that. I mean, is that the plan? Okay. I did email her. We don't have a phone. I can't call her. Yeah, this isn't my only option. I do this right.
- [33:22]
Dan Payne
Yeah.
- [33:23]
Julie Kohn
And it's kind of the end of our trip. We've talked to so many people, and I really want her to have a chance to say her side. Yeah. This is so awkward. Okay, here we go. A note here. You do not live one half of a block away from the Russian embassy if you aren't still on good terms with your country. This was not the home of a person who had left Russia to get away. Given the proximity and depending upon her age, which I still don't know for sure, Valentyna might even still work for the embassy somehow. Anyway, there was no doorbell outside, just a keypad with no ringing function. We tried dialing her apartment number, but that didn't work. The keypad, we learned, was only for keyless entry by the residents. It was not a way to call anyone inside. Did you see the mailbox names? No, there's no names on them. I mean, that's a lot of stairs. Stairs. Just to get to this dupe, I had to at least know if we had the right place. There's usually a margin of error with the software we use for finding people. Like, as an example, it rarely accounts for people dying. And I felt a real need to know, at the very least, if she was alive and living here. My only choice was to keep waiting awkwardly for someone to enter or exit the building so that I could ask them if an elderly Russian lady lived here and perhaps gain entry somehow. Then we might be in luck. Finally.
- [34:56]
David Major
Hi there.
- [34:57]
Julie Kohn
Hi there. Trying to get to the same place we are. I think the delivery guy used his cell phone to call the phone number listed for the package's recipient. He informed us this was the only way to contact residents of the building. Soon a woman came downstairs. Can I ask you a quick question? Sure. We're here to see a woman named Valentina Yerovskaya. Do you know if she would be 302? I don't know. Is there. Is there an older Russian woman? Oh, yeah. She's actually on this side. So she's 28302. Yes. Yeah, 302. She does live here. Okay. Is she expecting you guys? No, we were. We were having trouble reaching her. Yeah. Wanted to do it, if you wouldn't mind. Yeah. What's your name? My name is Julie Cone. Okay. And yeah, we're here. She wouldn't know us, but we were just trying to reach her and couldn't, so we showed up.
- [35:48]
David Major
I didn't want to wake you up.
- [35:50]
Dan Payne
This is not working.
- [35:51]
Julie Kohn
Yeah, no, it doesn't work. That's why I say just leave it at the door. Oh, gosh. This is for us. Thank you. Julia. Calm. Yeah. Okay. Thank you.
- [35:58]
David Major
Uh huh.
- [36:02]
Julie Kohn
Someone had opened the door to the apartment at the top of a flight of stairs. And the woman we had just met outside was speaking to that person. She pointed down to me, so I waved. Hi there. We wanted to ask her a question about a story from the past. Oh, okay. We're. We're doing. If I just. I'll. Okay. I couldn't see this woman. And I was afraid that they were too far away at the top of the stairs for my lapel mic to pick up their voices. I did an incredibly awkward thing and just began gently climbing the stairs towards them. Finally, I was able to see her. Valentina. She was petite, dressed nicely. Her short hair a light brown color, beautifully coiffed. She held out a hand to stop me. I'll be here. We were. We're doing an eight episode audio series about a man named Vitaly Yushchenko who came and then redefected back to the Soviet Union in. In 1985. Yes. It sounds like it's like history, Something historical. Yes. Where she's from? No, it's from someone she knew. From someone you knew. And they wanted to interview you. Are you interested? No. Yeah, she is.
- [37:37]
David Major
She's very little. I don't need your question and I don't need.
- [37:43]
Julie Kohn
Should I. I don't understand.
- [37:46]
David Major
Please.
- [37:46]
Julie Kohn
Okay, okay, okay. We'll come. We can come Back with a translator or something next time. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, did you hear that? She said as we were leaving, she said, listen to her neighbor. She said, sometimes it's not the first time. Like, as in, don't. This is. We're not the first people to come to her. We walked back to the car, stunned. When I. When I said Vitalyarchenko her, nothing. No reaction. It was amazing. Well, I gotta say, I'm shocked that she was there.
- [38:33]
Dan Payne
Yeah.
- [38:33]
Julie Kohn
I really thought this would be a swing and a miss. Yeah. Especially when we saw the stairs. Yeah, she's in great shape, but she's a petite woman. Right? Like, she's.
- [38:45]
David Major
She looked really good.
- [38:46]
Julie Kohn
She looked great. Like, brown hair. Physically, like, very able. I will say she looked early 80s. She looked like late 70s, early 80s. I wonder whether she wasn't a few years younger than her husband or than either of them. She pretended not to understand anything we were saying. I do think that was pretend. Yeah. She told she doesn't need. Basically, she doesn't need our question. She doesn't want us. There was my understanding of that. When we told her, like, what we were there for, she looked. She. She did not look confused when we explained that part. She was listening very carefully, but with a totally straight face. And then she pretended as though this meant nothing to her. But as we were walking away, I heard her say, this is not the first time to her neighbor who let us in, which means to me that that's Valentina, or that it's a woman who multiple people have thought is Valentina. Listen, I'm not holding my breath for her to take part in this, but I am. There was something like, I, I, I felt my. I got like. Like a jolt to see her there and to hear her there and to realize that she's here is very exciting. Also, not for nothing hilarious that we just experienced a very similar thing. That's Vitaly Yurchenko. We were like, hey, we were just tough. No. Okay. Okay, cool. Does that make me the guard in the back? Yeah, that makes you the Canadian Secret Service agent. I'm so flattered. I'm wearing red tie. Oh, my God. I gotta say, a little bit of heartbreak, man. Vitaly, I feel a shade of what you must have felt. Yeah, she's pretty blunt with us. Can you imagine? I don't need you. Goodbye. While I may have experienced a similar cold shoulder as Yurchenko, the difference was that it didn't ruin my life. Yurchenko, on the other hand, appeared dejected. If he was acting he was convincingly portraying a man sliding into a deep depression. Here's Colin.
- [40:54]
David Major
He was not happy. Rest assured, he was not happy.
- [41:00]
Julie Kohn
And Dan, his guard, recalls the slump, too.
- [41:03]
Dan Payne
When he came back, the day he got back from Canada, I was at the safe house. I said, alex, I said, I'm really sorry things didn't work out for you. And this was, like, the first time he ever opened up about. To me, anyway, about his personal life. And he said, it was something I never expected. I never would have imagined in a million years that she would not come with me. And he was devastated by that. It was not too long after that, like I would say, within days, he actually started going back on things that he had told us in the debriefings again. It was. He was going to be coming back with the love of his life, right? And then it. It all collapsed. And, I mean, we. We. We talked between us, and it was like, you know, every guy has been dumped at some point in their life, but nobody has been dumped. And the President knew about it. Everybody knew. The president knew.
- [42:15]
Julie Kohn
Mike Rochford agrees.
- [42:17]
Mike Rochford
He has affections for her. You know, whatever she told him, he believed. And so he thought, he's walking into his future when he knocks on the door, right? He goes up to Canada, and when he comes back, he's acting like a, you know, high school kid who had just got dumped on a date, right? So Reid and I spend the evening with him out by the lake in the safe house at Coventry. And he's. He's, like, talking about his future and whether or not he's got, you know, a future here or whatever.
- [42:53]
Julie Kohn
Mike knew the Valentina news had hit him hard, but he attributes Yurchenko's blues more to the leaks.
- [42:59]
Mike Rochford
So the leaks were huge?
- [43:01]
David Major
Huge.
- [43:01]
Mike Rochford
I mean, the Valentina thing, I don't know. I think he would have gotten over that, but I think they made too much of a big deal out of that. I mean, come on, what guy hasn't been told no by a woman?
- [43:15]
Julie Kohn
I'm sorry. You know, here's Milt Bearden, the deputy chief of the SE Division.
- [43:22]
David Major
All right, so. So it happened. Everything happened within 24 hours to him. There he is. It was in the Washington Times, right? Casey's paper. And then Valentino says, well, you know, I love my hero, but not my traitor. Get out of here. And, wow. Then. Then you have that human reaction, like, holy, I've made a monstrous mistake. And then he comes back and sees that he's a national figure by name, all of it. Valentina, the Washington Times. And he's not going to die like his mother.
- [44:04]
Julie Kohn
When he got back from Canada, Yurchenko slept most of the day. His appetite faded away. Then, according to Paul Redmond, Yurchenko received the most definitive news yet that his supposed cancer really wasn't cancer.
- [44:18]
David Major
We took him to Johns Hopkins in a big way and he was not.
- [44:23]
Julie Kohn
Dying of cancer, that he was fine and would live a long life. Not only did Valentina reject him and not only are the lives of his family ruined because of the leak and his life choices, but he'd now have a very long and lonely life to contemplate that. The psychologist from the defector resettlement staff wrote a memo that Yurchenko might be a suicide risk. Here's John Fitzpatrick, one of his other bodyguards.
- [44:49]
David Major
The tension quickly shifted in the, you know, the guidance to us to be on the lookout and for his mood. And of course, he would show up in the paper every couple of days. Something about him would be in the newspaper.
- [45:04]
Julie Kohn
The CIA would need to come up with some way to lift his spirits and fast. Colin Thompson had an idea.
- [45:13]
David Major
Well, at that point I said maybe we should take a trip, get out of debriefings and so forth. And so, and we'd been, he'd been here a couple of months at that time and he'd been working pretty hard. So darling. And so we decided, well, and I wish I'd taken him someplace else, but it didn't matter where we went, really. I said, well, let's go to Arizona and Grand Canyon, Las Vegas, you know, the parks, the national parks. Because he seemed to appreciate the wide open spaces a bit.
- [45:51]
Julie Kohn
A road trip through the American Southwest with a great pit stop in Las Vegas where maybe they could remind Vitale that there were other fish in the sea. You know, just your regular old boys trip to Vegas. More on that next time on the Reed Effector. The Redefector is a production of Waveland. I'm Julie Cohn 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 at Ameca Insurance. We know it's more than just a car. It's the two door coupe that was there for your first trip. Drive the hatchback that took you cross country and back and the minivan that tackles the weekly carpool for the cars you couldn't live without. Trust Ameca Auto Insurance Amica Empathy is our best policy at Strayer University. We help students like you go from Is it possible? To Anything is possible by offering access to up to 10 no cost gen Ed course courses so you can reach your goals affordably and fast. Visit Strayer. Edu to learn more. No cost Gen EDS provided by Strayer University Affiliate Sophia. Eligibility rules apply. Connect with us for details. Strayer University is certified to operate in Virginia by Chev and has many campuses, including at 2121 15th Street north in Arlington, Virginia.