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Though Yurchenko gave a confident performance, many of his answers were vague or contradictory. He refused to explain how he had escaped from the CIA. He said he had been held in isolation, but when one reporter identified himself, Yurchenko mentioned he had received a letter from him during his alleged captivity. Prompted by questions from two Soviet correspondents, Yurchenko compared his kidnaping to "state-sponsored terrorism" and accused the U.S. of "hypocrisy" for preaching about human rights yet violating his. As farfetched as his tale was, it provides the Soviets with a handy riposte at home and abroad to undercut Reagan when he brings up Soviet human rights violations at the Geneva summit. "What lawlessness!" commented Pravda after running Yurchenko's account. "And it takes place in a country whose leaders trumpet all over the world about 'democracy' and 'liberties,' who seek to teach everybody how one should observe human rights."
Washington officials, agog over what they had just seen on their TV sets, immediately denied Yurchenko's allegations. State Department Spokesman Charles Redman called the charges "completely false and without any foundation." State Department officials informed the Soviets they would not allow Yurchenko to leave the U.S. until he had satisfied them he was going voluntarily. On Tuesday evening he was driven to the State Department for a meeting with senior officials and a psychiatrist. After the 30-minute visit, U.S. officials concluded that Yurchenko indeed wished to leave. As he emerged from the building, he clasped his hands above his head and shouted to reporters, "Yes, home!"
According to his CIA biography, released at the end of last week, Yurchenko, 49, is indeed a master spy. He served as a submarine navigation officer for a year before joining the KGB in 1960. After several assignments in naval counterintelligence and security, he became in 1972 deputy chief of the third department of the KGB's Third Chief Directorate, a daunting mouthful that essentially meant Yurchenko helped recruit and run foreign agents. Yurchenko came to Washington in 1975, charged with overseeing security arrangements for the embassy. In 1980 Yurchenko returned to Moscow, where he became head of the section responsible for, among other things, ferreting out double agents and leaks within the KGB. In April of this year Yurchenko was named deputy chief of intelligence operations in the U.S. and Canada, a position that theoretically would allow him to know the identity of every Soviet agent in those countries. Reports that Yurchenko was the No. 5 man in the KGB are overblown, according to an intelligence source, but he "was a very senior person who had a high-ranking position within the organization."
In late July Yurchenko arrived in Rome from Moscow and was driven to Villa Abamelek, the Soviet embassy compound on the city's outskirts. On the morning of July 28, according to original accounts, Yurchenko told his guards he wanted to go by himself to the Vatican museums, less than a mile away. He never returned. Though stories have circulated about how Yurchenko disappeared, including an account carried this month by Actuel, a French magazine, which claims that Yurchenko met his CIA contact in the Sistine Chapel, U.S. officials refuse to reveal details. The State Department, however, reiterated last week that Yurchenko requested political asylum at the U.S. embassy on Aug. 1.