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terest in working or in learning English, not responsible in his behavior, wishy-washy about assuming responsibility (139). After his return, he was sentenced to 12 years labor camp (140).

Oleg Tumanov, until February 1986, editor of the Russian desk at Radio Liberty, formulated the reasons for his return as follows:

"My road back home has been tortuous. [...] The road back to my homeland was for me the natural and logical one. At a difficult time, and the world is going through a difficult time now, every honest person should with his own people. This is why I am here." (141)

That a defection may carry in itself the seeds of redefection is not unthinkable. The psychological stress faced by a defector can be overwhelming to the point of pushing him towards redefection. Following passage is very significant and revealing and describes how Viktor Belenko had to cope with certain stressful moments:

"[...] As it was early when he went back to his room, he switched on the television and turned the knob from channel to charmel until he saw something very familiar. How wonderful! In progress was a superb public television performance of Anna Karenina.

Primordial impulses seized and held and pushed him, and he could not resist them. He wanted to feel the mud of the streets, smell the stink in which he had grown up, be among the desolate, cold huts, hear Russian, te in the land of his birth, his people, his ancestors. He was hearing and being drawn by not only the call of the Mother Country, but the Call of the Wild.

[...]

He left his flight jacket, his flight suit, and everything else in the apartment and started north toward Washington -and the Soviet embassy. Great stakes rode with him. His voluntary return would prove to millions upon millions within and without the Soviet Union that the Party was right, that Soviet society was superior to American society, that it was the beacon lighting the way to the future of man.

[...]

But in all other crises, he tried to be Spartacus, to summon forth the best within himself, to think logically.

About 2:00 am north of Richmond the fever broke, ..."(142)

However good a treatment a defector may receive, return to the Motherland

is not excluded. This is what US intelligence officials experienced with a KGB

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colonel known under the cover-name, Rudolf Albert Herrmann.

Herrmann had been groomed by the KGB to become the illegal resident in the US whose role would have been to run and control Soviet espionage activities in this country in case the official relations between the Soviet Union and the US would break off. In 1980, Herrmann agreed to cooperate with the FBI "because he lacked diplomatic immunity, had only one other choice: jail and, above all, because he wanted to save his skin and that of his family." (143) Whatever the real reasons were, Herrmann got a yearly FBI bonus of $35,000 and managed to become a successful home builder and remodeler which would earn $300,000 in six years (144).

However, in November 1986, Rudolf Herrmann explained in an interview to the Los Angeles Times, that he wanted to return to his native Czechoslovakia for several reasons:

* life in America forced him into a "strait jacket"; all the news in this country was processed to reflect a single viewpoint;

* the poor in this country are treated so shabbily that he could no longer tolerate it;

* living under a false name in a foreign culture left him with a sense of gallows humor but little sense of identity;

* intense dislike of the US political climate.

The article ends saying that Herrmann expects to make it all the way to Czechoslovakia (See exhibit #6 for the LA Times article on Rudolf Herrmann ).

The Bitov and Yurchenko cases are murky at best. No wonder that the opinion are very much divided about the genuine character of their respective defections Nevertheless, it is not the intention of this study to disentangle the riddles and enigmas surrounding both cases. The official Soviet version is that they never intended to defect but were kidnapped, drugged and forced to make differen statements slandering the Soviet Union. As soon as possible they escaped the sur veillance of their captors and reported to the closest Soviet diplomatic post.

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But it is obvious that -whatever the real explanation of both cases is- the Soviet Union scored some impressive points, embarrassing at best for the West. One major advantage such a high-level redefection entails is that is sows confusion in the intelligence and counterintelligence services of the opponents, not only concerning the particular redefector ("was he now real or not?") but also because it enhances suspicions and mistrust regarding future defectors ("are they genuine or sent as a plant?"), adversely affecting their handling. Another serious advantage for the defector-turned-redefector is that during his interrogation he is able to deduce from the nature of the questions he is asked what kind of information is not kwown or half known to his questioners; and he can deduce from what he is not asked what sort of information is already known by the opposite party. Back home the returning defector can tell how the CIA and the FBI are operating. He can tell East bloc intelligence officials about the interrogation techniques being used. This latter aspect is vital in case East bloc intelligence services want to send other people to the West as spies. Errors made by the Center in the past can be rectified and intelligence officers sent out on a specific mission can be better prepared and know what to expect in case things would go wrong.

In this context, the redefector -and certainly the fake defector who returnsmust be considered as an very effective weapon that can paralyze the opponents' services for a certain length of time and possibly can cripple their morale.

And last but not least, the simple fact that the redefection of Yurchenko triggered off an in-depth analysis by Congress, the Executive branch and the intelligence community about how the US handles its defectors, will without any shadow of a doubt be used by the Soviet bloc countries to try to dissuade strongly its intelligence officers, diplomats and other high-level public officials not to defect lest they will be treated like Yurchenko.

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Cases about "strolling" defectors are not uncommon between the two Germanies. Mysteriously, several border guard officers and public officials of the GDR recently decided to stay in West Germany only to show up in East Germany after a short while with some bizarre or incredible explanations.

In June 1981, a lieutenant-colonel of the East German border troops, Klaus Dieter Rauschenbach came over to West Germany, where he barely stayed 48 hours and returned of his "own volition". The West German ministry for inter-German affairs had agreed to a meeting between Rauschenbach and his wife. A West German public official accompanied him on his trip home. Later Rauschenbach was shown to a Western television correspondent in Leipzig. It has been said that Rauschenbach committed suicide afterwards (145).

Another colleague of Rauschenbach, Lt.-Col. Dietmar Mann, also a border guard officer, who co...anded the 3rd battalion of communist East Germany's 24th Border Guard Regiment, went over to the West on August 31, 1986 (146). Mann had transmitted confidential information on the East German surveillance of the inter-German border and had given several lectures to West German office:s. Then Marin had withdrawn from sight with the help of the BND, the West German intelligence service (147).

In a December 1986 program on the West German television (ARD), Mann had declared that he expected every day to be kidnapped by the East German services and to be brought back to East Germany. Nevertheless, he accepted to live with that risk. He further declared that he was convinced that they would do everything to get hold of him or to convince him to come back to East Germany. "When you act like I did", he added, "one must face the possibility in the East of a life term in prison or capital punishment." (148).

On April 14, 1987, ADN, the official East German news agency, reported that Lt. Col. Dietmar Mann had returned to the GDR of his own free will on April 11,

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escaping from the care of the West German intelligence service, taking with him "comprehensive documents."(149)

The case of Herbert Meissner, Deputy Secretary General of the GDR Academy of Sciences and a noted economist, is still more theatrical and full of question marks.

While in West Berlin, Meissner got arrested on July 9, 1986 for shoplifting. The coveted object was a part of a bathroom shower hose whose price was around $12 $14 (150). Only willing to talk to the West German intelligence authorities, he volunteered information about his spying activities for the GDR since 1978 (151).

But several days later Meissner apparently changed his mind and fled to the East German diplomatic representation in Bonn. Things got worse when the West German prosecutor filed spying charges and launched a warrant for immediate arrest. Meissner was suddenly unable to leave the East German mission.

Lothar Gliencke, acting head of the GDR's permanent mission in the FRG reacted very strongly saying that

"Herbert Meissner had been arrested under false charges while on a business trip to West Berlin, then taken forcibly to Munich and held and interrogated there by the FRG's BND. The BND had confiscated his diplomatic passport and personal papers. Prof. Meissner was to be forced into betraying the GDR by means of pressure and blackmail measures. However, he was able to escape from his guards and went to the GDR permanent mission in Bonn in order to secure his personal safety. ..." (152)

Meissner stated also in the East German television that he had been kid

napped, drugged and blackmailed." He asserted that he had been abducted by the West, drugged so that he would confess to spying and pressed to betray East Germany (153).

Eventually, the impasse was resolved because the federal prosecutor agreed to cancel the legal proceedings against the economist on suspicion of espionage and dropped a warrant for his immediate arrest (154). According to ADN, Meissner