Vitaly Yurchenko

Vitaly Sergeyevich Yurchenko (; born May 2, 1936) is a former high-ranking KGB disinformation officer in the Soviet Union. After 25 years of service in the KGB, he apparently defected to the United States during an assignment in Rome on August 1, 1985, arriving the following day. After providing the names of two U.S. intelligence officers as KGB agents, asserting that Yuri Nosenko was a true defector, and claiming that Lee Harvey Oswald was never recruited by the KGB, Yurchenko slipped away from the Americans and returned to the Soviet Union.

Background A plaque formerly displayed in a Washington, D.C. restaurant commemorated Vitaly Yurchenko's last meal in the United States. Upon his defection to the United States, Yurchenko identified two American intelligence officers as KGB agents: Ronald Pelton and Edward Lee Howard. Pelton was later convicted, while Howard fled to the Soviet Union before he could be questioned.

Disappearance In November 1985, before eating a meal at Au Pied de Cochon, a French restaurant in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C., Yurchenko told his CIA guard, "I'm going for a walk. If I don't come back, it's not your fault." Yurchenko did not return.

The building, located at 1335 Wisconsin Avenue NW has a plaque commemorating the event that was once displayed in one of Au Pied de Cochon's booths.

Return to the Soviet Union Several days later, the Soviet Embassy called a press conference, at which Yurchenko announced he had been kidnapped and drugged by the Americans. It is possible that his defection was staged to fool the CIA with wrong leads, to protect Aldrich Ames, an American who worked for the CIA and was then one of the Soviet Union's most important moles within the CIA. The KGB was reported to have secretly interrogated Yurchenko after his return, under the influence of a truth drug, to ensure he had not been recruited by the CIA as a double agent.