5.2.10. Yuri Shvets, TV Nation Agent
Description
This article is from the Michael Moore FAQ, by Edward Champion edchamp@slip.net with numerous contributions by others.
5.2.10. Yuri Shvets, TV Nation Agent
Yuri B. Shvets was employed by the KGB, the State Security
Agency of the former USSR, from 1980 until 1990. In addition to
working at the KGB's Headquarters outside of Moscow, Yuri was
stationed in Washington, DC, from 1985 until 1987.
The following text is reprinted from the book jacket to Yuri
Shvets's book "Washington Station_.
In the spring of 1985, Yuri B. Shvets, an idealistic young KGB
officer, reported to the Soviet embassy in Washington, D.C., home
of the KGB's Washington station. His mission: to try to recruit
Americans with access to important political offices, including the
White House, the Pentagon, and the CIA. It was no easy task, and
many of Shvets's KGB colleagues never even made the effort.
Nonetheless, under cover as a reporter for TASS, the Soviet news
agency, Shvets managed to recruit a journalist and former White
House advisor - code-named "Socrates" - whose story has never
been told before.
In "Washington Station," his riveting account of his
experiences spying against the United States, Yuri Shvets describes
in fascinating detail what only a real KGB officer could know: the
daily activities of Soviet spies in our nation's capital, including
the elaborate games of cat and mouse between KGB officers and FBI
agents.
Ironically, it was Shvets's successful recruitment of Socrates
that caused him to become disillusioned with the KGB. Shvets
paints a devastating portrait of the Soviet spy agency in the final
years of the USSR. The KGB was a mirror of Soviet society,
collapsing from bureaucracy and incompetence. The head of the
Washington residency was so fearful of FBI and CIA plants that he
all but forbade his officers to recruit new agents. Because of
his recruit, Shvets found himself under constant suspicion within
the KGB.
Increasingly frustrated and demoralized, Shvets finally quit
the KGB in 1990 when the Agency began preparing to oppose the
democracy movement in Russia by force.
Yuri B. Shvets is an honors graduate of Patrice Lumumba
People's Friendship University, with a degree in international law.
He studied for two years at the Yuri Andropov Intelligence
Institute outside Moscow. He spent two years in the Washington
residency of the KGB and rose eventually to the rank of major. In
1990 he resigned his position and in 1993 emigrated to the United
States. He now lives in the suburbs of Washington, D.C.
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