DEFECTOR FROM CIA DEAD IN MOSCOW

He didn't hurt the stairs did he?

I am shocked, just shocked.

Can we have his body back and use it as target practice for some of the reservists being called up?

A CIA spokesman said yesterday that the agency had received reports that Howard "passed away" last week "but we have not yet been able to confirm them."

Although Howard always denied he was a spy, he lived in Moscow as a "guest of the state" since 1985.

SPY CASES - UNITED STATES
Edward Lee Howard

Howard, Edward Lee. Safe House: The Compelling Memoirs of the Only CIA Spy to Seek Asylum in Russia. Bethesda, MD: National Press Books, 1995.

Surveillant 14.1 notes that Howard does not say whether he gave the Soviets secrets after he fled the United States. He "describes a purported clandestine return to the U.S. in 1986,... [and] describes meeting a Soviet mole ... working for the U.S. government who remains hidden today and implies that there are others.... Those who believe Howard's account of this trip can generally be recognized by the number of deeds they carry announcing ownership in various bridges." The bottomline: "His story, such as it is, is old hat. He reveals nothing new in the way of fact although he does embellish the known events to rationalize his persecution complex. It all adds up to boredom squared."

According to Valcourt, IJI&C 9.1, Howard's book is "an attempt to secure a favorable place for himself in the pantheon of intelligence operatives. Painting himself as a victim of surly bureaucrats..., Howard offers little of substance to sustain his innocence." Safe House mixes "bravado, fable, and whimpering" and will become a "mostly forgotten work" by someone who was not nearly as significant as originally thought.

Chambers: "A rush of espionage cases and events resulted in 1985 becoming known as the 'Year of the Spy.' The second most surprising event, after the defection and redefection of Vitali Yurchenko, was the disappearance of former CIA DO officer Edward Lee Howard from his home in New Mexico followed by his appearance in Moscow. Howard had apparently been identified by Yurchenko as a KGB source in the CIA....

"Howard does himself few favors with this book. From his drug use in the Peace Corps to his defection and to the time he nearly gets repatriated by an enthusiastic Soviet guard, he makes one dumb decision after another.... When he isn't being silly, Howard is being disingenuous. He admits that he did give information to the KGB, but claims that it can't have done any harm as such information is ephemeral.... The style is clear, but flat....

"Howard expresses a considerable dislike for David Wise's book about him, claiming to have been misquoted a number of times. However, Wise ... did take the time to find out more about the CIA's treatment of Howard after the firing than Howard tells us about and he shows a level of detachment from the case that allows useful lessons to be drawn. It is recommended over this offering." For Chambers' full review, CLICK here.

Newsweek [Evan Thomas, et al.]. "Deadly Mole." 7 Mar. 1994, 24-29.

He was 50. So he graduated from HS in 1970 and was up for the first draft lottery. He didn't win so he joined the Peace Corps where he spent a few years smoking dope.

Perfect candidate for the CIA. Wonder what went wrong with him?

1985 - EDWARD L. HOWARD, former CIA agent, was reportedly forced to resign in June 1983 after failing a polygraph examination which indicated his involvement in petty theft and drug use.

According to news reports, Howard was one of two former CIA employees (identified by Soviet defector Vitaly Yurchenko) who sold classified information to the KGB. Although placed under surveillance by the FBI at his Albuquerque home Howard (who had been trained in surveillance and evasion tactics) eluded spotters and fled the country.

Howard allegedly had met with Soviet agents in Austria in September 1984 and received payment for classified information. He is reported to have revealed to the KGB the identity of a valuable US intelligence source in Moscow, now presumed dead or under sentence of execution.

It is also reported that five American diplomats were expelled from the Soviet Union as persona non grata as a result of information provided by Howard. On 7 August 1986, the Soviet news agency TASS announced that Howard had been granted political asylum in the USSR.

Now I remember. This was the guy the FBI had under direct surveillance of his home in Santa Fe and he slipped away under their very noses, to reappear on the streets of Moscow a week later.

Some years later after the old USSR fell he tried to get back to the US without any charges because the Soviets didn't exist any longer.

Fell down and broke his neck? Hmmmm.

Yeah, it's the old "accidental" fall: down the stairs, out the window, from a helicopter, whatever.

Stuff happens...

Good. He lived 17 years too long IMHO.

So sad to hear he died </sarcasm>

Good riddance. But he deserved a better fate: breaking his neck at the end of a rope instead of on a flight of stairs.

Too bad he didn't get to share a cell with Jonathan Pollard and Robert Hansen.

Index Bump

Play with the bad boys and you may get hurt.

Here's how the article looked in the Houston Chronicle:

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/printstory.hts/world/1505993

July 24, 2002, 12:23AM

Ex-CIA officer who defected to Moscow dies

Associated Press

MOSCOW -- Edward Lee Howard, who maintained he was innocent of charges that he betrayed his homeland and caused the collapse of the CIA operation in Cold War Moscow, has died at his home in an exclusive suburb of the Russian capital. He was 50.

AP file

Edward Lee Howard, a former CIA officer, strolls along the Arbat, a pedestrian walkway in Moscow, in the spring of 1995.

Soviet officials said Howard died July 12 in Zhukovka and was later cremated. But confusion surrounded the cause of Howard's death.

"There is talk that there was an accident or a car crash. There's lots of contradicting information," said Igor Prelin, an official with an association of retired Soviet foreign intelligence officers in Moscow. He had known Howard since 1988.

Author David Wise, who once interviewed Howard and wrote The Spy Who Got Away, said Howard died after falling down a flight of stairs.

Howard was the first known former CIA officer to defect to the Soviet Union, and information he gave the KGB was said to have led to the execution of a Soviet citizen for treason.

Howard, a native of New Mexico, started at the CIA in 1981 and was fired by the agency in June 1983 after he was suspected of selling secrets to the Soviets.

In 1985, Howard escaped FBI surveillance in Santa Fe, N.M., and fled to Moscow, where he was granted political asylum.

He used a dummy in his car to evade the agents, and his wife later reportedly made a telephone call using a recording of his voice to throw them off his trail. His whereabouts were unknown publicly until a 1986 report in an official Soviet newspaper said he had been granted political asylum.

The KGB provided him a Moscow apartment and a country house, and paid him a salary for five years until he set up a trade consulting business, he said in an 1995 interview. "I never gave information that could hurt America or Americans," Howard said at the time.

Howard lived in Moscow until 1991, when his chief patron at the KGB, Vladimir Kryuchkov, was charged with treason in the attempted coup against Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev. Howard went to Sweden for about a year before returning to Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Howard's estranged American wife and son came to Moscow after his death, and will leave today for the United States with his ashes, Prelin said. Prelin said Howard also had had a Russian wife, but they separated several years ago.

Soviet officials said Howard died July 12 in Zhukovka and was later cremated.

You'd think that even a journalism major would know there hasn't been a Soviet Union for about a decade now...