Word: shevchenko
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Last week a New York City attorney retained by Shevchenko announced that his client would not be returning to the U.S.S.R. because of "differences with his government." Shevchenko was by far the most important Soviet diplomat to have defected to the West, and the news caused consternation at the U.N., intense alarm in Moscow, and scarcely concealed elation in Washington. A protégé of Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, and Moscow's top-ranking official on the U.N. staff, Shevchenko was privy to many of his country's secrets, including the inner workings of Kremlin foreign...
Stunned and unbelieving, Soviet officials in the U.S. requested a meeting with Shevchenko, who was in hiding somewhere in New York State. The defecting diplomat's lawyer, Ernest Gross, a U.S. Assistant Secretary of State under Truman, arranged a meeting in his Manhattan law office. In a dramatic, hour-long confrontation with Soviet Ambassador to Washington Anatoli Dobrynin and Ambassador to the U.N. Oleg Troyanovsky, Shevchenko insisted that he would not return to his native land on an official visit, as Moscow had demanded. Following that meeting, the Soviets registered their first public reaction to the defection by claiming...
...State Department spokesman, Tom Reston, denied the charge. Shevchenko, he said, "is free to stay here, return to the U.S.S.R. or go to another country, as far as we are concerned. The U.S. Government in no way attempted to influence him in his decision." Meanwhile, Shevchenko was proving an embarrassment to Waldheim, since he had not resigned his $76,032-a-year post, which is traditionally reserved for a Soviet diplomat...
...reasons behind Shevchenko's action appeared murky at first. Regarded by his U.N. colleagues as an arrogant, hardline Communist apparatchik, Shevchenko clearly had not been moved by a sudden, overwhelming yearning for freedom. Moreover, the move seemingly cut short a brilliant career. First posted to the U.N. in 1963 as a counselor in the Soviet Mission, Shevchenko served in New York for seven years. The Ukrainian-born diplomat then returned to Moscow as an adviser to Foreign Minister Gromyko and reached ambassadorial rank at the unusually early age of 40. In 1973 he was sent back...
Speaking through his lawyer, Shevchenko maintained that his summons home by Moscow was unacceptable and improper for an independent U.N. official like himself. Some U.N. aides scoffed at this explanation; whenever Shevchenko was late for a meeting, they would say it was because he had stopped off at the Soviet Mission 30 blocks away to get instructions. According to one theory, Shevchenko had been recalled to Moscow as a result of some behind-the-scenes power struggle in the Foreign Ministry that threatened to end his career. With his dreams of further advancement shattered, so the theory went, he defected...