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277. Question: The first person they come across.NOSENKO: Those who have passports. I had a passport. I was ready. And they decided: "Get going immediately." We flew through insterdam, through Geneva. We spent a night in Amsterdam and then made a short stop in Geneva, then the Azores, Santa Maria Island, then we were supposed to fly to Curacao. But we had a head- wind and the pilots were evidently afraid that we wouldn't have enough fuel. So the plane went out of its way and made a landing on the island of Barbados. This was not a Soviet plane, but KLM. We flew to Amsterdam on a TU-104 and then went by KLM. Then from Curacao we flew to Aruba. We also spent a night in Aruba, an interesting island; the water and natural surroundings are beautiful. From Aruba we flew through Kingston, through Jamaica, and then to Cuba. And we flew the same route back, but we did not spend the night in Curacao. From Curacao we landed in Caracas for about 40 minutes, and through Paramaric--Dutch Guiana--across the ocean, some island or another there, and from there again Lisbon, Geneva, and Amsterdam. But here the entire delegation flew (to Moscow) after a day or two and I took a train through West Germany (to East Berlin).go to Cuba. GRIBANOV'S deputy (S.G.) BANNIKOV, said that a worker (KGB officer) should be sent. But they decided not to send a worker to Cuba. "Why bother?" (they said). "Is Cuba worth it?" Suddenly there was a phone call from the Central Committee (of the Communist Party). Someone from the Central Committee said: "No, there is a directive that one of our workers must go nevertheless." And only two days remained before the departure of the delegation. Who could they send?All of NOSENKO's accounts since contacting CIA in 1964 have been generally consistent with that given on 14 June 1962. His story has been as follows: In the latter part of 1960, at the same time as he was preparing for his intended trip to the United States, a special delegation of nickel industry experts from Gosplan, the Soviet State Planning Commission, was preparing for departure to Cuba. The delegation was a routine one, consisting mostly of engineers from various sections of the Soviet Union, and since there was no one under any sort of suspicion, the Eleventh (Soviet Travellers Abroad) Department of the Second Chief Directorate had decided that it would not be necessary to include a security officer. Two days prior to the departure of the group, however, the Central Committee of the Communist Party decided that a Second Chief Directorate case officer must go along. Because of the short time remaining before the scheduled departure of the delegation, the Eleventh Department protested that it would be impossible to find a suitable person and get all the necessary papers ready in time. At this point, A.I. KUZNETSOV of the Eleventh Department said: "Just a minute. We have a man who has his passport all ready. His passport has been formalized. NOSENKO. He was supposed to go to the States... and his foreign passport has been issued and signed. Why don't you take him?" NOSENKO's statement continued: "So somebody said: 'How about a visa?' And KUZNETSOV