ARKADY SHEVCHENKO

UKRAINE, 1930-98

Holding the distinction of being the highest-ranking diplomat to have defected from the USSR to the United States, Shevchenko arrived in America in 1978 to great fanfare. He had been feeding information to the CIA for just over two years before he finally made the leap to defecting, which surprised many who had identified him as a hard-line communist and rising star in Soviet politics. At the time he was under secretary general at the United Nations, second only to Secretary General Kurt Waldheim.