Prompted by this thread, where the topic is the safety of the North Korean soccer team after losing to Portugal 7-0.
What does it take to defect? Does a potential defector go knock on the door of a foreign embassy, or what? How much force can security forces from the about-to-be-former country use to prevent the defection? I assume South African police would object to gun battles in their streets…
I know all about this because I watch Barney Miller. All you have to do is go to the 12th precinct and talk to Sargent Wojohowitz.
…And now back to your regularly scheduled thread
It is usually a matter of careful planning and a moment’s seized opportunity. During the Cold War, Soviet-bloc performers would sometimes defect to their tour guides, or athletes to their host country’s athletic committee officials, or diplomats to their opposite numbers in the State Department or foreign ministry, or spies to spies from “the other side.” Several military pilots defected just by landing in other countries, in some cases evading pursuit. As long as you can evade the clutches of your minders or your country’s secret police, you will probably find a warm welcome on the “other side.”
Nureyev defects in 1961: The KGB's long war against Rudolf Nureyev
Baryshnikov defects in 1974: CBC Archives
A Soviet pilot’s noteworthy defection (which was also an intelligence coup): Viktor Belenko - Wikipedia
Here are many others: List of Soviet and Eastern Bloc defectors - Wikipedia
And sometimes, to lasting suspicion and questions on both sides, they go back: Vitaly Yurchenko - Wikipedia
So what is it that completes the act of defection? Obviously, you have to escape the guards/security people for your soon-to-be-former country, but how far can they chase you? Can you surrender to the nearest new-country cop? Could one of the guards shoot a defector in the head to prevent his escape/defection?
A lot would depend on the reaction of the nearby cop. I could see some befuddled cop, having to choose on the spot between a panicky defector who doesn’t speak his language, and an insistent foreign official brandishing a diplomatic ID and “explaining” the situation in the cop’s own tongue, letting the official drag the defector away. I cannot see the cop permitting a murder right in front of him, however, and such an extreme act would probably lead to a major diplomatic row between the countries involved.
I know of no defection on foreign soil in which officials or agents of the defector’s native country used deadly force to prevent it from happening. Later retributive attacks, undertaken secretly, are something else again, and were somewhat common against defecting spies. See this notorious case: Georgi Markov - Wikipedia.
A defection is complete when the defector is effectively beyond the reach of his native country’s goons, and the country to which the defector has gone grants asylum, deciding not to return him.
Whoa…Markov was murdered in 1978? I must be confusing him with someone else–I coulda sworn someone was murdered in a similar fashion just a few years ago, in London. Or maybe I’m remembering discussion of it in a Tom Clancy novel…
You’re probably thinking of Alexander Litvinenko, who was poisoned by radioactive polonium in his tea in late 2006.
I am surprised those defectors MiGs were not shot down. Did these people even speak english?
The father of one of my best friends was a high ranking Cuban diplomat who defected to the US. I’m not too knowledgable about the specifics since I haven’t talked to him in several years, but his job required a lot of travelling, and it basically boiled down to just bringing his family with him and not going back after one trip and being granted asylum by the US. They all later received their green cards and ultimately their citizenships, but last I heard, they’re still still wanted in Cuba and, thus, can’t visit home.
Yup, that’s the incident I sorta almost remembered. Thanks.
I don’t know, but I’d guess they probably did. When I was still in the Air Force, I had to photograph the cockpits of some German fighter aircraft. I was surprised to see the instruments/switches labled in English. The captain I was working with told me that English is very commonly used in aviation, regardless of the native language of a particular pilot.
In the case of Cubans trying to defect to the United States, I guess their defection is complete when they touch dry land in the U.S.
For Elendil’s Heir’s observation,
I think the Konstantin Volkov case might be an exception. I’m unclear as to whether he was snatched from the embassy (technically Soviet soil), or from elsewhere in Istanbul.
Wish I could find a better cite than Wiki, but I remember reading elsewhere that Igor Gouzenko was petrified that the Soviets were going to grab him out of Toronto, and indeed agents from the Soviet embassy did break into his apartment and start rummaging through his stuff.
Wasn’t there a controversy on CNN a few years ago alleging that U.S. forces in Vietnam tried to kill U.S. servicemen that had defected to the NVA?
Are the rules different on defection out of the USA?
If you want to renounce your citizenship and leave the country, you cannot take your assets with you intact. You are subject to mark to market rules, as if you sold everything, so they essentially hold you up and shake you down. One of the justifications, for example, of taxing citizens on worldwide income was the benefit of being a US citizen, IE freedom. Now with diminishing freedoms in the USA, people are starting to edge toward the door. People are leaving, and I hear illegal immigration is even down!
So, the question is, is it illegal to defect from the USA?
Well, there is a difference between defection and emigration. Defection implies that you are doing something “wrong” in the eyes of your home country, frequently something of interest to intelligence agencies - e.g. you know classified information from your home country, you have advanced technology such as the latest fighter plane, etc. Plain old emigration is more mundane.
Also, I don’t think that there are any laws in the US against just up and emigrating if you can find a country that will let you settle. There is worldwide taxation of income, but if you want to settle in Canada and Canada accepts you as an immigrant, Federal goons aren’t going to be waiting for you at Niagara Falls to “discourage” you from crossing the border.
Nitpick: Wojciehowicz, just like it sounds.
As long as you’re not defecting for a frivolous reason.
I guess there’s a difference between people of interest to intelligence community (in their target land) and people like dancers or athletes or Ivan the plumber simply looking for a better life. The latter are simply applying for asylum as refugees. This was granted almost automatically to people who escaped from communist countries, until places like Vietnam (boat people) and Cuba (assorted flotillas) called the west’s bluff by allowing massive numbers of people to simply leave if they wanted. (Actually, IIRC, a lot of boat people were ethnic Chinese not particularly welcome in Vietnam anyway…)
Communism was a bit more unique that regimes in past history from trying to prevent people from leaving; they had this weird view that because communism was the ultimate workers’ paradise, simple wanting to leave, whatever the reason, was treasonous disloyalty.
I suppose that minders or “tour guides” assigned could do whatever they could get away with to prevent defections. If they had diplomatic immunity they could even commit asssault or (in the extreme) murder, although I don’t recall actual cases of that. After all, a lot of this is about optics; murdering your citizens in broad daylight in a foreign country in front of witnesses is probably as embarrassing as having them defect in the first place. However, I bet there were plenty of people who got the midnight trip home with a couple of goons, possibly drugged, when the tour guide got worried.
Stalin was famous for sending murder and kidnap squads to “get even”. I recall an interview with one fellow whose mother jumped ship from a Soviet vessel (Seattle?) and many years later, the KGB hunted her down and killed her, even though she had been just a regular seaman and then was just a regular American housewife. It was not just the high profile targets like Trotsky who got the treatment. The invetor of the Theremin, Leon, was also kidnapped back to Russia by a KGB get-even squad.
I suppose the defection would be complete when the defective was far enough away from clutching hands that he could not be bundled onto the next plane… and then when his asylum/refugee application is accepted and he is given the necessary documentation to make his stay legal, no chance of being deported home.
The American housewife former Soviet seaman is a bit iffy and would like to know more.
There was a gentlemans agreement between the sides that they would not kill; this was honoured with a few notable exceptions.
Most foreign agents have been killed by third parties or during operations where the going got a bit rough. Simple murder was not usually allowed.
Belenko’s story is interesting. He was an experienced MiG pilot stationed in Siberia. He defected on a day when he had a routine training flight scheduled and conditions were optimal (proper weather and a fully tanked up plane). In the midst of his scheduled flight he dove to tree level, turned off his radio and radar, and bugged out for Japan. He had the jump on his squadron, and flew low to avoid radar, and though they chased him with deadly intent, he made it to Japan where he landed on a commercial airstrip with no tower clearance and only 52 seconds of fuel left in his tank.
Belenkov did not speak English but he had written up a note, using a dictionary (!). It said, "“Quickly call representative American intelligence service. Airplane camoflauge. Nobody not allowed to approach.”
The Japanese government immediately arrested him (for immigration offenses IIRC) and cannily insisted the MiG be held as “evidence” in the upcoming “criminal trial.”
You can’t “defect” if you’re perfectly free to leave. The U.S. doesn’t keep its citizens confined within its territory against their will. There’s even a procedure for giving up your U.S. citizenship, if you’re crazy, er, determined enough to want to do so. The Master speaks: How do I go about renouncing my U.S. citizenship? - The Straight Dope