The State Department confirmed Friday that a Soviet KGB colonel, his young son and a female friend have defected to the United States.
Department spokesman Charles Redman read a brief statement to reporters confirming reports that Viktor Gundarev and the two others had defected.
The statement said the three are in the United States and identified Gudarev as a colonel in the Soviet KGB intelligence agency stationed in Athens.
”Viktor P. Gundarev, his 7-year-old son Maxim and a friend of the Gundarev family, Galina N. Gromova, requested permission from the United States government to enter the United States,” the statement said. ”They have been granted that permission and are currently in the United States.”
Athens sources had identified Gromova as Gundarev`s mistress and said he fled to escape his wife, who had complained about her husband`s affair to Soviet Ambassador Viktor Stukalin.
Gromova reportedly was Maxim`s nurse and a part-time teacher of Soviet diplomats` children.
CBS News, citing unidentified administration sources, reported Friday that Gundarev worked in the same unit as double defector Vitaly Yurchenko and told U.S. officials that Yurchenko`s defection to the West was genuine. Gundarev denied that Yurchenko was a KGB plant, the network said.
Yurchenko defected last summer and went back to Moscow in October.
