Word: berezhkovs
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Thus ended the strange saga of Andrei Berezhkov, the 16-year-old son of a Soviet diplomat, whose brief disappearance for a nocturnal spin in his family's car had escalated from a police-blotter item to a diplomatic showdown between the superpowers. The reason: though he returned home under his own power ten hours later, both President Reagan and the New York Times had that day received letters, purportedly from him, requesting asylum. Kept hidden away by the Soviets for more than a week while they and U.S. officials sparred over how to handle the matter, Andrei finally...
Added his father, Valentin Berezhkov, a first secretary in the U.S.S.R.'s Washington embassy: "You can agree with me that a 16-year-old boy knows how to spell his name...
...elder Berezhkov charged that the State Department's demand to question Andrei privately, in an effort to establish firsthand whether he wanted to defect, was "an attempt to use our boy as a pawn in a new anti-Soviet gambit." Reagan Administration officials acknowledge privately that they were not averse to letting the Soviets suffer a bit of embarrassment over the incident. They also admit that any attempt to prevent Andrei's departure would have been legally dubious, since he was both a minor in the custody of his parents and held a diplomatic-status visa, which prohibits...
That secret meeting, which lasted 40 minutes, took place on the mobile lounge that carried the Berezhkov entourage to the waiting TWA L-1011 jetliner. During an unscheduled "delay" on the trip across the tarmac, the vehicle was ringed by six State Department security agents, who were prepared to take custody of Andrei if he indicated any desire to stay in the U.S. Burt did not quiz the youth directly about politics, since Charge Sokolov was also on board; they talked about ordinary matters, such as school and the youth's musical interests. But, says one official familiar with...