Vitaly Yurchenko

Vitaly Sergeyevich Yurchenko (Russian: Виталий Сергеевич Юрченко; 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 allegedly 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 Soviets.