It was 1985, the so-called “Year of the Spy”. The CIA had been losing Soviet assets left and right; the first loss seemed like bad luck, but four in a row? That wasn't coincidence — it was a deadly leak. And just as the Agency was scrambling to find answers, across the world, a KGB colonel named Vitaly Yurchenko walked into the American embassy in Rome and volunteered his services in exchange for immediate exfiltration to the United States.
At the time, Yurchenko was the highest ranked KGB officer ever to defect to America, and the Agency felt it had hit the jackpot. Instead, his defection would go on to become one of the most dizzying, high stakes espionage debacles of the last century. Although many of his bombshell revelations were bonafide, a doubt soon began haunting the intelligence community: Was Vitaly Yurchenko telling the whole truth? And if not... What had he been sent to hide?
Join host Julie Cohn in this ten-part series featuring interviews with CIA officers, bodyguards, FBI Special Agents, reporters and even a former KGB general as she uncovers the truth behind the decades-long Vitaly Yurchenko mystery.
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It was 1985, the so-called “Year of the Spy”. The CIA had been losing Soviet assets left and right; the first loss seemed like bad luck, but four in a row? That wasn't coincidence — it was a deadly leak. And just as the Agency was scrambling to find answers, across the world, a KGB colonel named Vitaly Yurchenko walked into the American embassy in Rome and volunteered his services in exchange for immediate exfiltration to the United States.
At the time, Yurchenko was the highest ranked KGB officer ever to defect to America, and the Agency felt it had hit the jackpot. Instead, his defection would go on to become one of the most dizzying, high stakes espionage debacles of the last century. Although many of his bombshell revelations were bonafide, a doubt soon began haunting the intelligence community: Was Vitaly Yurchenko telling the whole truth? And if not... What had he been sent to hide?
Join host Julie Cohn in this ten-part series featuring interviews with CIA officers, bodyguards, FBI Special Agents, reporters and even a former KGB general as she uncovers the truth behind the decades-long Vitaly Yurchenko mystery.
BONUS EPISODE: Bodies continue to drop, despite the leaks identified by Yurchenko. Despite intensifying debate over his legitimacy, the SE division has a new desperate focus: to find answers. It creates a special task force to identify the remaining leak before any more lives are lost. In this bonus episode, we track the three fascinating reasons why the task force took years: Masterful deception campaigns by the Soviets; the ghost of James Jesus Angleton; and a scandal at the White House.
Yurchenko... reappears, sowing chaos. A debate begins to rage in the press, at the CIA, and even in the White House: Was Vitaly Yurchenko a plant from the very beginning?
To cheer up the despondent Yurchenko, the CIA takes Yurchenko on a road trip through the American Southwest, complete with a stop in Sin City. Soon after he returns from the trip, his spirits still low, Yurchenko... disappears.
Yurchenko and his team of CIA and FBI officers start over in a new safehouse in the Virginia countryside. Meanwhile, the mole Yurchenko revealed... makes a run for it.
Vitaly Yurchenko is a fountain of intelligence and quickly becomes a celebrity in US intelligence circles. But the higher his profile, the greater the threat to his safety...
It was August 1st, 1985, a year so full of espionage drama that it has since become known as "The Year of the Spy." The CIA had been suspiciously losing Soviet assets one after another. Just as the Agency was beginning to suspect a leak, around the world in Italy, a KGB Colonel named Vitaly Yurchenko made his way to the American Embassy in Rome, ready to trade Soviet intelligence in exchange for immediate exfiltration to the U.S. The first secret he revealed: The CIA had a mole in its midst. Two secrets he doesn't mention: Yurchenko believes he's dying, and wants to spend his last months reunited with a woman he met while stationed in America.
It was 1985, and the CIA had a painful secret. Soviet assets who had been secretly working for the CIA had begun ominously disappearing one, after another. One might be bad luck… But four was three too many to be a coincidence.
It was 1985, the so-called “Year of the Spy”. The CIA had been losing Soviet assets left and right; the first loss seemed like bad luck, but four in a row? That wasn't coincidence — it was a deadly leak. And just as the Agency was scrambling to find answers, across the world, a KGB colonel named Vitaly Yurchenko walked into the American embassy in Rome and volunteered his services in exchange for immediate exfiltration to the United States.
At the time, Yurchenko was the highest ranked KGB officer ever to defect to America, and the Agency felt it had hit the jackpot. Instead, his defection would go on to become one of the most dizzying, high stakes espionage debacles of the last century. Although many of his bombshell revelations were bonafide, a doubt soon began haunting the intelligence community: Was Vitaly Yurchenko telling the whole truth? And if not... What had he been sent to hide?
Join host Julie Cohn in this ten-part series featuring interviews with CIA officers, bodyguards, FBI Special Agents, reporters and even a former KGB general as she uncovers the truth behind the decades-long Vitaly Yurchenko mystery.
