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# TOP SECRET299. actively for the Legal Residency and had provided the KGB with "good, solid information" with "very valuable material for technical intelligence;" at the same time the agent had been asking to be repatriated to the USSR, to become a Soviet citizen, but the KGB had been putting him off in order to continue to exploit his access. Since the amount and quality of the agent's production had recently deteriorated, the KGB decided to accede to his request for repatriation. Now, however, the agent declined, saying that "he was not ready to go just yet. First he was practically begging to come to the Soviet Union and now he was balking." This by itself appeared suspicious to the KGB, but in addition, it was about this time that the agent came into contact with KOTEN NOSENKO learned from BARKOVSKIY that KOTEN "used to go to some bookstore that sells Soviet literature and through a saleslady in this story whom KOTEN knows, he became acquainted with the agent who also used to go to this store. After that, he used to meet with the agent without the saleslady."On the basis of these incidents the First Chief Directorate suspected that KOTEN had been directed specifically to this store in order to meet and "work on" the agent and that, having learned that the agent had relatives "in Stantsiya Loo, about 17 kilometers from Sochi... he had evidently received the assignment (to visit the relatives) from American Intelligence. Evidently they had gotten on the trail of this agent and were checking on him." The KGB also had suspicions concerning the relatives, former kulaks who were still well-off financially. It was known to the KGB, for example, that the agent had written his sister in Stantsiya Loo that he wanted to return to the Soviet Union, and she had replied: "Is there any sense in your coming here?"KOTEN arrived in Moscow and then travelled to Sochi. From there he sent a telegram to the agent's sister and her husband in Stantsiya Loo, asking them to come to Sochi to see him. When they arrived at KOTE's hotel, however, the hotel administrator told them that KOTEN was on an excursion and refused to allow a meeting. KOTEN then took it upon himself to travel to Stantsiya Loo where he eventually contacted and spoke to the relatives. In the course of this meeting KOTEN took photographs of the sister and her husband and recorded a message from the sister to the agent on a tape recorder he had brought along. From this the KGB deduced that "U.S. Intelligence wants to get documentary data" and it therefore decided to "try to get hold of KOTEN."There had already been some indication during KOTEN'S earlier trips to the USSR that he was a homosexual, but the KGB had taken no action because KOTEN was believed to be a loyal Communist Party member. With these recent developments, the situation had now changed. Although NOSENKO's superiors were absent from KGB Headquarters at the time, immediate action was required. NOSENKO consequently "took the whole thing on myself because everybody got excited. Everybody said: 'Let's go. American Intelligence is active, none of our bosses are here, the situation is right, the decision must be made right now.'" By this time KOTEN had travelled to Tbilisi, and there a homosexual KGB agent managed to entice him into relations in a public park. These were suitably documented, and he was then picked up by the local Militia. (In the absence of hisTOP