Word: kudirka
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...months after he was brutally beaten, gagged and dragged from a U.S. Coast Guard cutter by six burly Russians, little was heard of Lithuanian Sailor Simas Kudirka. Last November Kudirka, 32, sought asylum when his ship, the Sovietskaya Litva, tied up alongside the cutter Vigilant in U.S. territorial waters off Cape Cod to discuss North Atlantic fishing rights. Ten hours after Kudirka jumped aboard the Vigilant and pleaded for sanctuary, Coast Guard headquarters in Boston ordered the Vigilant to allow Soviet sailors to take him back. The incident so outraged the country and incensed President Nixon that the Vigilant...
...think you misinterpreted your last order," Brown shot back, "you are to take all precautions to prevent the incident from occurring." Brown was suggesting, on order from Admiral Ellis, that Eustis was to ensure that Kudirka would not jump overboard by returning him to the Soviets. Eustis was also informed that this hard line was "in the interest of not fouling up any of our arrangements as far as the fishing situation is concerned...
Like a Log. Thus it was that Commander Eustis reluctantly permitted six Soviet seaman to board Vigilant. When the Russians arrived, Kudirka was about to jump overboard. Within 10 or 15 seconds, however, according to one of Vigilant's crew, D.R. Santos, "the Russians grabbed him, about four of them, and beat this man viciously. One of them grabbed a ship's phone cord and was going to wrap it around the defector's neck when the phone talker pulled the cord away. While this happened, another Russian was beating the defector's head against...
...Russians let up once Kudirka was subdued. Aboard Vigilant's launch carrying the now unconscious defector and his captors back to the Russian ship, Boatswain's Mate Richard Maresca saw Kudirka "completely tied up and being handled like nothing more than a log. One Russian sat on the defector's head and kept punching him for the entire ride. Once we arrived alongside the Russian ship, they threw the defector from aft to amidships, and threw him into a net lowered from the Russian vessel...
Soon after, the Russian ship, Sovietskaya Litva, was escorted from the area by Vigilant. Kudirka's fate is still unknown, but imaginable...