The Main Enemy by Milton Bearden (epub e reader txt) 📕

life in the West did not include his wife. It revolved instead around his secret love, Valentina Yereskovsky. Vitaly and Valentina—they had fallen in love years earlier when they had been thrown together in the Soviet diplomatic community in Washington. From 1975 until 1980, Yurchenko had served as the security officer in the KGB’s Washington Rezidentura, while Valentina, the wife of a Soviet diplomat, had been working as the pediatrician for the Soviet community. Yurchenko fell in love, and he yearned to someday, somehow, escape with her for a life far away from the complications of marriage and KGB security.

Sitting in a safe house in Virginia, Yurchenko fondly recalled the romantic Washington that he and Valentina had shared so briefly. The two had parted when Yurchenko was transferred back to Moscow, leaving the KGB officer to build dreams of a new world around his love for Valentina. Eventually he came to believe that Valentina would be ready to fly away with him on a moment’s notice. All he needed to do was show up.

The CIA agreed to arrange a dramatic reunion between Vitaly and Valentina in Montreal, where her husband was now posted. The risks for the CIA and for Yurchenko were high, but perhaps Valentina would indeed come away with her lover and Yurchenko’s outlook on his new life would brighten. Yurchenko had come to trust Medanich, so the plainspoken Texan would travel with the Russian and help him through the trauma of this reunion.

For his part, Medanich had come to respect Yurchenko; he seemed a cut above the other Soviet defectors he had handled during his career. Yurchenko had a puritanical streak and adhered to a spartan (if very odd) diet. He enjoyed cooking beef tongue and other Russian specialties he believed would soothe his ailing stomach. He never expressed interest in having the CIA procure women for him or in indulging himself in other vices. The recent death of his mother from stomach cancer had convinced Yurchenko that he was living on borrowed time, and while the loss seemed to have spurred him on to his impulsive decision to defect, it didn’t mean he was a man of uncontrollable urges. He was, Medanich concluded, a man of honor. He had been happily telling the CIA everything he knew about KGB operations, had provided the tip that had led the CIA and FBI to Howard, and now all he hoped for was a reunion with the woman he loved and a fresh life on the American side of the Cold War.

For Yurchenko, the night before the trip to Montreal was like the night before the junior prom. Medanich arranged for a haircut and a new suit so he would look his best for his girl.

Yurchenko flew from Washington with Medanich and a CIA security detail to a military base near Plattsburgh, New York. The small group then drove across the border to rendezvous with the CIA’s station chief in Canada and one of Yurchenko’s main CIA debriefers, Colin Thompson, a Soviet Division officer in charge of Eastern European counterintelligence. The Canadian government provided security and logistical support for the visit, to make sure the KGB didn’t try to grab Yurchenko while he was out of the United States.

Yurchenko and his entourage spent one night in a Montreal hotel under the watchful eyes of the Canadian security personnel. The Canadians didn’t want Yurchenko to go out on the streets during the evening, but Medanich realized that he was so nervous, endlessly pacing in his room, that he needed to get out. Medanich finally overruled the Canadians and took him out for a walk, while a tense Canadian security detail followed close on their heels.

Valentina had returned from home leave in Moscow just before Yurchenko and his CIA detail arrived in Montreal. The CIA tried to arrange for Yurchenko to approach her as soon as she returned, just in case the Soviets knew about their relationship. The CIA figured that if they moved quickly, the Soviets wouldn’t have enough time to plan an ambush.

The plan was simple: Yurchenko would go to Valentina’s apartment at lunchtime, while her husband was at the office and when she would most likely be one of the few people in the building. Canadian security personnel had the site covered, with lookouts across the street radioing back to a makeshift command post and undercover personnel posing as maintenance workers just down the hall. They were poised to move in quickly at the first sign of trouble.

When Yurchenko knocked on the apartment door, Valentina seemed to be expecting him. But his dreams were quickly shattered. When he asked her to come with him, she sternly said no. Later, Yurchenko confided to Medanich what she had said. She told him that she had loved a KGB colonel, not a traitor.

I have loved two men in my life, she told him. My father and you. My father is dead, and now you are dead in my eyes. You are nothing but a traitor.

The rejection was very dramatic, very Russian, and absolutely devastating. Valentina never let Yurchenko inside her apartment; the entire exchange took place at her door and lasted just two or three minutes. His head spinning, Yurchenko found his way back downstairs, back to the car and Medanich, back to a life now empty of dreams.

Colin Thompson left Montreal uncertain whether Valentina had ever really shared Yurchenko’s dream of a life together. Thompson never warmed to Yurchenko, at least not the way Medanich did, and he wondered if Yurchenko’s idea of having Valentina run away with him was merely a fantasy to avoid a lonely existence as a Russian defector in the United States.

After a brief countersurveillance run to make sure they weren’t being followed, Yurchenko’s driver headed for the border. The Canadians made the exit from downtown Montreal easier by blocking off traffic.

Yurchenko said little in the car as they sped away from the scene of his heartbreak. Matter-of-factly, he told Medanich what Valentina had said but