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

added little about his own thoughts. Yurchenko, ever the KGB officer, didn’t want to say much in front of a driver he didn’t know well. And Medanich didn’t pry; the pain was evident.

It was raining hard by the time they got back to Plattsburgh; the remnants of a tropical storm were pounding the Northeast. The weather fit Yurchenko’s foul mood. While he was in Montreal, the story about his defection had broken in The Washington Times, and the rest of the Washington press corps was chasing the story. Some CIA officers had an awful feeling that the leaks might have come directly from CIA Director William Casey, who was eager for some positive press now that controversy was mounting over the CIA’s aggressive activities in Central America, particularly the mining of Nicaraguan harbors.

Yurchenko had discovered the leaks in the worst possible way: He picked up a Montreal newspaper and saw a story about himself, just as he was being rejected by Valentina. He lost his love and his anonymity at the same time, and his bitterness about his fate deepened.

That night, at the officers club, Yurchenko had a drink; it was the only time he did so in front of Medanich. Even then, he stopped at one.

The weather cleared the next morning, and they boarded their plane for Washington in brilliant sunshine. Yurchenko’s spirits seemed to lift briefly as he stood in the door of the plane, breathing in the morning air. But on the flight back to Washington, he seemed to be wrestling with his fate. He was convinced that the KGB had brainwashed Valentina, that they had turned her against him. Now, for the first time, he had to think about life without her.

He turned to Medanich. You are single, Yurchenko observed. What is it like to be a bachelor?

“I’ve been married and I’ve been single,” Medanich said carefully, not knowing what answer Yurchenko wanted. “There are advantages both ways.”

Back in Washington, Yurchenko’s mood grew worse. Without Valentina, he found it harder to accept the slights he perceived. His anger over the media leaks mounted, and he felt his handlers were showing him off to the world—and cutting off his options.

By mid-October, Medanich and others at the CIA realized that Yurchenko needed a break. Maybe a trip out west would take his mind off his troubles, off Valentina. This time, Medanich would not be along to help soothe Yurchenko’s nerves. Colin Thompson took his place, joining Yurchenko and the rest of his detail on a tour of the West. Thompson and Yurchenko didn’t get along, which doomed the trip almost from the start.

After flying to Phoenix, Yurchenko and his escorts drove to the Grand Canyon, Las Vegas, and Bryce Canyon, Utah. The idea was to let him relax and see the country, but the trip only reconfirmed his fear that he didn’t fit into this strange culture. Far from Washington, Yurchenko found it harder to make himself understood by Americans unfamiliar with his heavily accented English. Coached to ask for oatmeal instead of porridge for breakfast, he was embarrassed when a waitress was puzzled by his request for “houtmeal.” It was his first exposure to life outside his CIA-created bubble, and he found it bewildering. He later confessed to Medanich that he felt like a baby, a proud KGB officer now unable to do things for himself.

In Las Vegas, Yurchenko was put off when his minders offered to find him a prostitute. It was clear that the pleasures of Las Vegas—gambling, sex, and liquor—were lost on Yurchenko.

The highlight of the trip came when the group was flagged down in rural Arizona and met by an FBI agent carrying a book of mug shots for Yurchenko to plow through. The FBI was anxious to track down the NSA spy, since he had told the Soviets about one of the most costly eavesdropping operations in American history. Yurchenko had already gone through a series of other mug books of NSA employees and had come up dry. But this time, the FBI widened the net to include a photo of a former NSA employee. It didn’t take long for Yurchenko to identify Ronald Pelton, who had left the NSA before he began spying, as the man who had visited the Soviet embassy.

But as soon as Yurchenko picked Pelton out of the mug book, Thompson saw a change in him. Suddenly, Yurchenko realized that by fingering Pelton, he might have to testify in court, and he would thus publicly confirm the fact that he had defected. Such an open display would almost certainly prompt the Soviet authorities to move against his family and make it impossible for him to ever return home. Thompson later believed it was at that moment that Yurchenko began to think about finding a way out of his new life.

Medanich could see after Yurchenko returned from the trip that it had done nothing to improve his outlook. By late October, he was concerned that Yurchenko was slipping away mentally and emotionally. Medanich was an instinctive man, and his gut had been warning him about the Yurchenko case for some time. He had always had a slightly spooky feeling whenever he drove down to the Coventry safe house near Fredericksburg to visit Yurchenko. He could never quite put his finger on it, but during their walks by the beaver pond on the property, he sometimes felt as if they were being watched. There were minor incidents—strangers driving down the lane leading up to the safe house, for instance—that heightened his suspicions. There was never any evidence that the strangers were there to watch Yurchenko, but Medanich just didn’t like so many coincidences.

Now, Yurchenko’s mood was changing rapidly. Medanich finally wrote a memo detailing his fears, warning that unless something was done and done fast, Yurchenko would end his cooperation with the United States government. The memo was sitting on Burton Gerber’s desk by the beginning of November. Later, Medanich wished he had used stronger language in his memo and