29 Facts About Arkady Shevchenko

Arkady Nikolayevich Shevchenko was a Soviet diplomat who was the highest-ranking Soviet official to defect to the West.

Arkady Shevchenko was born in the town of Horlivka, in the east of Ukraine, and when he was five his family moved to Yevpatoria, a resort town in Crimea, on the Black Sea, where his father, a physician, was the administrator of a tuberculosis sanatorium.

Arkady Shevchenko later recalled how his father attended the Yalta Conference, in part on orders to observe and report on the health of US President Franklin Roosevelt.

Arkady Shevchenko graduated from secondary school in 1949 and that year was admitted to Moscow State Institute of International Relations.

Arkady Shevchenko studied Soviet law and Marxist, Leninist and Stalinist theory and was trained to become a foreign service diplomat.

Arkady Shevchenko married Leongina, a fellow student, in 1951.

Arkady Shevchenko completed the program in 1954 and continued with graduate studies.

In 1956, Arkady Shevchenko joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as an attache and was assigned to the OMO, a branch of the Foreign Ministry dealing with the United Nations and NGOs.

Arkady Shevchenko attended the 1962 Geneva Committee on Disarmament Negotiations as a member of the Soviet delegation.

Arkady Shevchenko continued in that post until 1970 when he was appointed advisor to Andrei Gromyko.

Arkady Shevchenko's duties covered a broad range of Soviet foreign policy initiatives.

Arkady Shevchenko later described it in an interview with WGBH.

In 1973, Arkady Shevchenko was promoted and became an Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations.

Arkady Shevchenko eventually became resentful of the restrictions that his Soviet superiors subjected him to that prevented him from carrying out his duties as an Under Secretary objectively.

Arkady Shevchenko had immediate access to the inner workings of the Soviet foreign policy establishment and felt that the Soviet government was cheating on the intent of the agreements for short-term political gain, which would be ultimately to its own disadvantage.

Arkady Shevchenko stated clearly that Soviet leaders, while pretending to respect the UN, actually disdained it and viewed it solely as a means to advance Soviet interests covertly or otherwise.

Arkady Shevchenko came to believe that the Soviet's internal economic policies and their insistence on hard-line communist centralization of power were depriving the Russian people of their freedom and ability to better themselves and their country.

Arkady Shevchenko was tired of and bitter about not being free and not being able to speak freely, and he wanted personal freedom.

Arkady Shevchenko briefly considered resigning his position with the UN and returning to the Soviet Union in an attempt to change the system from within, but he soon came to the realization that it would have been an impossible task, as he had neither the power nor the influence to effect any significant change.

Arkady Shevchenko did not like that option because he felt that such a life in retirement would be meaningless.

Arkady Shevchenko made contact with the CIA to seek political asylum.

Arkady Shevchenko often wrestled with how he would broach the idea of upcoming defection with his wife, Leongina.

Arkady Shevchenko knew that she would probably react angrily and refuse to accede.

Arkady Shevchenko ended up never telling her until he left a note for her right before he rushed out the door on April 10,1978, while she slept.

Arkady Shevchenko surmised that as soon as she had read the note, she called the KGB.

Arkady Shevchenko was immediately whisked back to Moscow, where she died mysteriously, supposedly by suicide, less than two months later.

Arkady Shevchenko later admitted to himself that the reason he never told her in advance about his defection was he knew she would probably get angry and expose his plan to the KGB.

From 1978 to his death 20 years later in Bethesda, Maryland, in the United States, Arkady Shevchenko lived and supported himself by written contributions to various publications and on the lecture circuit.

Arkady Shevchenko died on February 28,1998, and was buried in Washington, DC.