VITALIY SERGEYEVICH YURCHENKO Qn 1 August 1985, general-designate Vitaliy Sergeyevich Yurchenko, a staff officer of the KGB with 25 years of service, requested political asylum in the United States at the American Embassy in Rome, Italy. He was born on 2 May 1936 in the village of Bolshoye Shkundino, Khislavichskiy Rayon, Smolensk Oblast, RSFSR. His father was a factory worker who served in the Soviet Army and died during the siege of Leningrad in 1941/42. His mother worked at the kolkhoz near Smolensk until 1946 and then moved to Leningrad and remained there until her death in 1985. Subject and his wife married in 1958. They have a daughter, born in 1961, and an adopted son, born in 1969. His wife is a graduate of the Construction Institute in Voronezh and works as an engineer in the Soyuzvodokanalproyekt Planning Institute in Moscow. His son is still in school. His daughter graduated from Moscow State University in 1984 and teaches English and French at a physical culture institute. She is married. His relationship with his wife was seriously strained prior to his defection. Subject attended a Nakhimov school (Nakhimovskoye uchilishche) located in Tblisi, Georgian SSR, from 1948 to 1954. [Nakhimov schools are secondary schools which prepare individuals for military careers.] He then entered the Leningrad Higher Naval School of Submarine Navigation imeni Lenin Komsomol. After his graduation in 1958, he was commissioned a lieutenant in the Soviet Navy and was assigned to the Pacific Fleet, headquartered in Viadivostok. From 1958 to 1960 Subject served with the 4th Independent Submarine Brigade at Vladivostok. The brigade repaired and refurbished submarines and tested new equipment. Initially, Subject was a navigation officer on a submarine, pennant number 176, but during his last year with the brigade, he was transferred to the brigade staff. In 1959 Subject was told that he had been recommended for transfer to the KGB's Third Chief Directorate (counterintelligence in the Soviet Armed Forces). The transfer was accomplished smoothly and in 1960 he entered the KGB Third Chief Directorate School, Number 311, in Novosibirsk and joined the Party. From 1961 to 1965 he worked as an operations officer (operativn upolnomochennyy) in the KGB Special Department (KGB/00) for the Black Sea Fleet. Subject's department, which was jocated in Balaklava, was responsible for counterintelligence work concerning two submarine brigades based in Balaklava, a PVO Strany Missile division, a submarine brigade based in Sevastopol, and the Sevastopol Higher Naval Engineering School. pio es Kelease
In 1963 Subject was promoted to senior operations officer. In 1965 he entered KGB School 101 with the intention of transferring to the First Chief Directorate (Foreign Intelligence) after graduation. The 1967 Arab-Israeti War and aftermath and the Soviet response to it caused Subject to be returned to the Third Chief Directorate. From August 1967 until December 1968, Subject was deputy chief of the KGB/00 of the Fifth (Mediterranean) Squadron of the Black Sea Fleet. He was responsible for organizing and supervising the work of the KGB officers assigned to this squadron and for ensuring the security of ships’ personnel during visits to foreign ports. From December 1968 to May 1972, he was assigned to the KGB Residency in Egypt as a Soviet adviser to the staff of the Egyptian Fleet in Alexandria. He was responsible for working with agents among the Soviet advisers to prevent the recruitment of advisers by Western intelligence services; for monitoring the conduct and activities of advisers and their wives; for the collection of political information; and for the recruitment of Egyptian military agents. From May 1972 to May 1975, Subject was deputy chief of the Third Department (intelligence) of the Third Chief Directorate. The Third Department was responsible for the recruitment of foreigners using the resources of Soviet military counterintelligence; for working with foreign agents to acquire information; for the recruitment of foreign agents among trainees at Soviet military academies and schools; for the insertion of agents Cdangles] into Western, especially American, intelligence services; and for handling double agent cases involving Western intelligence services. From August 1975 to August 1980, Subject was the security officer at the Soviet Embassy in Washington. As such, he was responsible for ensuring the security of Soviet establishments and citizens in Washington; for work with agents within the Soviet colony; for supervision of the physical security of the Embassy and other Soviet installations; for protecting Soviet classified information; and for handling foreign visitors, including those volunteering their services to Soviet establishments. In September 1980, Subject transferred to the First Chief Directorate (FCD). From September 1980 to March 1985, he was chief of the Fifth Department of Directorate K (counterinhtelligence) of the FCD. The Fifth Department was responsible for the investigation of suspected espionage incidents involving KGB staff personnel; for investigation of incidents of leaks of information about the work of the First Chief Directorate, its personnel, and its foreign agents; for analysis of incidents of agent compromises and arrests of staff personnel; for monitoring the testing and vetting of foreign agents by the functional directorates and area departments of the FCD; for investigation of treason by directorate officers and for searching for such individuals abroad; for organization of training and preparation of security officers and Border Guards personnel sent abroad; for
recruitment of agents among directorate staff personnel; for the indoctrination of directorate counterintelligence officers going abroad; for the conduct of special operations abroad; for assisting the directorate chief in working with defectors to the USSR (Kim Philby, George Blake); and for the use of special drugs. From April to July 1985, Subject was Deputy Chief of the First Department for work against the US and Canada. The Department was responsible fer supervising the KGB Residencies in the US and Canada; for coordinating work against the US by other First Chief Directorate components through Group North; for assisting all other elements of the KGB, outside the First Chief Directorate, in work against American citizens; and for coordinating work against the US with the security services of other communist countries. Subject's own responsibilities included: Supervising the KGB Residencies in Ottawa and Montreal, Canada; Supervising the activities of the Coordination Section, including its work against the US on Soviet territory, its selection of agents in the US, and KGB joint operations with the services of other communist countries; Mobilization work, including preparing the First Department for wartime; preparing plans for the deployment and use of the operational staff; selecting agents to be used after the beginning of war; and working out agent communications plans.