Martin and Mitchell defection The Martin and Mitchell Defection occurred in September 1960 when two U . S . National Security Agency ( NSA ) cryptologist s , William Hamilton Martin and Bernon F . Mitchell , defected to the Soviet Union . A secret 1963 NSA study said that " Beyond any doubt , no other event has had , or is likely to have in the future , a greater impact on the Agency ' s security program . " Martin and Mitchell met while serving in the U . S . Navy in Japan in the early 1950s and both joined the NSA on the same day in 1957 . They defected together to the Soviet Union in 1960 , and at a Moscow press conference they revealed and denounced various U . S . policies , especially provocative incursions into the air space of other nations and spying on America ' s own allies . Underscoring their apprehension of nuclear war , they said " we would attempt to crawl to the moon if we thought it would lessen the threat of an atomic war . " Within days , citing a trusted source , Congressman Francis E . Walter , chairman of the House Un - American Activities Committee ( HUAC ) , said Martin and Mitchell were " sex deviates " , prompting sensational press coverage . U . S . officials at the National Security Council privately shared their assumption that the two were part of a traitorous homosexual network . Classified NSA investigations , on the other hand , determined the pair had " greatly inflated opinions concerning their intellectual attainments and talents " and had defected to satisfy social aspirations . The House Un - American Activities Committee publicly intimated its interpretation of the relationship between Martin and Mitchell as homosexual and that reading guided the Pentagon ' s discussion of the defection for decades . Biographies . William Hamilton Martin ( May 27 , 1931 – January 17 , 1987 ) was born in Columbus , Georgia . His family soon moved to Washington state where his father was president of the Ellensburg Chamber of Commerce . He graduated from Ellensburg High School after two years . After studies at Central Washington College of Education ( now Central Washington University ) , he earned a degree in mathematics from the University of Washington in Seattle in 1947 . He enlisted in the United States Navy and served from 1951 to 1954 , working as a cryptologist with the Naval Security Group in Japan . Martin played chess and collected Japanese sword handles . Bernon F . Mitchell ( March 11 , 1929 – November 12 , 2001 ) was born and raised in Eureka , California , and enlisted in the US Navy after one year of college . He gained experience as a cryptologist during a tour of duty in the Navy from 1951 to 1954 , serving in Japan with the Naval Security Group at Kami Seya . He stayed on in Japan for another year , working for the Army Security Agency . Following his Navy service , he earned his bachelor ' s degree at Stanford University . Martin and Mitchell became friends during their Navy service at the Naval communications intercept facility at Kami Seya , Japan . They kept in touch as each returned to school after their Navy service and encountered one another again when each was recruited into the National Security Agency ( NSA ) in 1957 . Their years at the NSA were uneventful . Martin gained enough recognition that he was twice awarded scholarships for study towards a master ' s degree . Mitchell and Martin became disturbed by what they learned of American incursions into foreign airspace and realized that Congress was unaware of those NSA - sponsored flights . In February 1959 , in violation of NSA rules , they tried to report what they knew to a Congressman who had expressed frustration with the information he was receiving from the NSA , Ohio Democrat Wayne Hays . In December 1959 , the pair visited Cuba without notifying their superiors as required by NSA procedures . Defection . On June 25 , 1960 , Mitchell and Martin left the U . S . for Mexico . They traveled from there to Havana and then sailed on a Russian freighter to the Soviet Union . On August 5 , the Pentagon announced that they had not returned from vacation and said " there is a likelihood that they have gone behind the Iron Curtain . " On September 6 , 1960 , they appeared at a joint news conference at the House of Journalists in Moscow and announced they had requested asylum and Soviet citizenship . The " New York Times " described them as " long - time bachelor friends " and reported they smiled at each other only when they described the social advantages they anticipated in the Soviet Union , where , their prepared statement said , " The talents of women are encouraged and utilized to a much greater extent in the Soviet Union than in the United States . We feel that this enriches Soviet society and makes Soviet women more desirable as mates . " During the conference , the defectors made public for the first time the mission and activities of the NSA in a prepared statement written , they said , " without consulting the Government of the Soviet Union " . It said that " the United States Government is as unscrupulous as it has accused the Soviet Government of being " . They also said : They particularly attacked the views of General Thomas S . Power who had recently told a Congressional committee that the U . S . needed to maintain a nuclear first - strike capability and Senator Barry Goldwater ' s opposition to banning nuclear tests and negotiating a disarmament treaty . By contrast , they said , " we would attempt to crawl to the moon if we thought it would lessen the threat of an atomic war . " The U . S . had recently admitted sending reconnaissance flights over foreign countries in recent years , but Martin and Mitchell said they knew from their Navy service that such flights had occurred as early as 1952 – 54 . They detailed a U . S . C - 130 flight over Soviet Armenia that the Soviets brought down . They contended that it was designed to gain an understanding of Soviet defenses , and that it therefore represented an American interest in attacking the Soviets rather than defending against them . They also complained of restrictions on freedom in the U . S . , such as government confiscation of mail , particularly the freedom of those who are " not theists " or " whose political convictions are unpopular " . In response , the American government called Mitchell and Martin ' s charges " completely false " . The Department of Defense called them " turncoats " and " tools of Soviet propaganda " , " one mentally sick and both obviously confused " . It also characterized their positions at the NSA as " junior mathematicians " . The issue of the pair ' s sexuality was raised and dismissed in this report : " Representative Francis E . Walter , Democrat of Pennsylvania [ and chairman of the House Un - American Activities Committee ] , denied that he had made an allegation , reported by a news agency , that one of the men had been described as a homosexual in a report by the Federal Bureau of Investigation . " A Pentagon spokesman told reporters that there was nothing in Mitchell and Martin ' s personnel records to suggest homosexuality or sexual perversion . The next day , Walter explicitly stated that a source he trusted had told him that the two defectors were " known to their acquaintances as ' sex deviates ' " . That charge was promptly picked up by the press and resulted immediately in stories about homosexuals recruiting " other sexual deviates " for jobs in the federal government . The Hearst newspapers referred to Martin and Mitchell as " two defecting blackmailed homosexual specialists " and a " love team " . " Time " reported that a review of security checks turned up a Mitchell visit to a psychiatrist " presumably out of concern for homosexual tendencies " . In an interview with the Soviet news agency Tass in December 1960 , they expressed their belief that American espionage against Russia , U . S . allies , and neutral nations would continue unchanged despite the inauguration of a new American president in January 1961 . Later years . According to a later government report , Martin who was fluent in Russian , studied at Leningrad University ( now Saint Petersburg State University ) , and used the name Vladimir Sokolodsky . He married a Soviet citizen whom he divorced in 1963 . He later told a Russian newspaper that his defection had been " foolhardy " . He also expressed disappointment that the Russians did not trust him with important work . He occasionally sought the help of American visitors in arranging for repatriation , including Donald Duffy , vice president of the Kaiser Foundation , and bandleader Benny Goodman . On another occasion he told an American that before defecting he had believed the vision of Russia presented by propaganda publications like " USSR " and " Soviet Life " . By 1975 , a source told the U . S . government Martin was " totally on the skids " . In 1979 he inquired at the American consulate about repatriation . As a result his case was examined and he was stripped of his American citizenship . He was next denied permission to immigrate to America and then denied a tourist visa . Martin eventually left the Soviet Union and died of cancer in Mexico on January 17 , 1987 , at Tijuana ' s Hospital Del Mar . He was buried in the U . S . Less is known of Mitchell . Having renounced his American citizenship , he remained in the Soviet Union for the rest of his life . He died in St . Petersburg on November 12 , 2001 . Government response . The Martin - Mitchell defections had another life inside the U . S . intelligence community . At a meeting of the National Security Council in October 1960 , officials considered a response to the Martin - Mitchell affair . Attorney General William P . Rogers believed that the Soviets had a list of homosexuals to use in their recruiting and blackmail efforts , that Martin and Mitchell were part of " an organized group " . Several at the meeting thought polygraph tests would help prevent the hiring of homosexuals . President Eisenhower himself wanted a central authority to coordinate all government lists of homosexuals . In order to prevent another occurrence , the NSA needed to understand what motivated the defectors . Their initial investigation turned up little of interest . Notes of psychological counseling sessions from the 1940s described Martin as " brilliant but emotionally immature " and offered a diagnosis of " beginning character neurosis with schizoid tendencies " and mentioned he was likely " sadistic " . Mitchell had told the NSA when questioned not long after starting work at the Agency that he had experimented sexually as a teenager with dogs and chickens . The immediate NSA response focused on sexual issues . In July 1961 the Agency announced that it had purged 26 employees it identified as " sexual deviates " though it added the qualification that " not all were homosexuals " . Yet a series of NSA investigations gave little credit to the role of sexuality in Mitchell and Martin ' s defection . In 1961 , an NSA report called them " close friends and somewhat anti - social " , " egotistical , arrogant and insecure young men whose place in society was much lower than they believed they deserved " , with " greatly inflated opinions concerning their intellectual attainments and talents " . In 1963 , another NSA report found " no clear motive " , that they had not been recruited by foreigners , and termed the defection " impulsive " . NSA files obtained by journalists at the " Seattle Weekly " in 2007 cited definitive testimony on the part of women acquaintances who attested to their heterosexuality . The only perversions recorded were Martin ' s " all - controlling sadomasochism " . He had occasionally watched women having sex or had sex himself with multiple female partners . In 1962 , Congressman Walters ' House Un - American Activities Committee ( HUAC ) concluded its 13 - month investigation and issued a report on the defections . Where Mitchell had told his psychiatrist that he had affairs with both men and women and was not troubled about his sexual identity , the report referred to his " homosexual problems " . The report never identified a rationale for the Mitchell and Martin defections , but focused on the inadequacy of the investigations that granted them security clearances despite evidence of " homosexuality or other sexual abnormality " , atheism , and Communist sympathies on the part of one or both of the men . The report made a series of recommendations with respect to NSA hiring practices and security investigations that were promptly adopted by the Agency . Later government analyses went beyond the characterizations in the HUAC account , unaware of the NSA ' s unpublished analysis . Despite the contrary evidence , a 1991 study by the Pentagon ' s Defense Security Service – still in use in 2007 – called Martin and Mitchell " publicly known homosexuals " .