"...The CIA was very happy to assist him in this 'flight to freedom'..."
"Imagine someone speaking 1920's American English trying to communicate in the 1960's."
"The CIA, of course, would neither confirm nor deny that he had disappeared."
NEXT WEEK:
More money, you say?
Nick
Shadrin
by Jean d'Isle
' 
n
the last article, I introduced
you to a fellow named Nicholas Shadrin, who was loosely
associated with the Navy Language School in Washington,
D.C. 
Unlike our
Russian language instructors, who fled Mother Russia on
the heels of the 1917 revolution, Nick was a
"modern" Russian who came to the U.S. as a
defector from the Soviet Union. Nick was a high-ranking
Soviet naval officer who had previously commanded a
"Skoryy" class destroyer (at that time, their
most advanced destroyer type). In the late 1950's, while
on attaché duty in Poland, he fell in love with a Polish
citizen and chose to defect to the West rather than
return to the USSR without her. The CIA was very happy to
assist him in this "flight to freedom", since
he had valuable current knowledge and experience in
Soviet naval surface warfare doctrine and anti-submarine
warfare tactics.
Nick and his future wife (he left a wife and 
children behind) were brought to the U.S.
where Nick underwent extensive debriefing sessions with
the CIA and other U.S. and allied intelligence agencies.
He became well known by U.S. Navy submarine officers who
had the opportunity to hear his presentation on Soviet
anti-submarine tactics at our submarine school in Groton,
Conn. His participation at the Navy Language School was a
way of keeping him busy while justifying his monthly
stipend from the CIA.
He participated in the language school's final exam process over several years and was a favorite with the students. I remember him as an intelligent, friendly, outgoing guy with a great sense of humor. He let us know, in subtle ways, that our Russian language ability would not get us very far (Lyubyanka Prison, maybe), should we try to pass ourselves off as Russians. Our instructors, after all, were transplanted from a tsarist Russia of 50 years ago; and even with updating of the curriculum, they tended to inject antiquated terms and constructions into the classroom. Imagine someone speaking 1920's American English trying to communicate in the 1960's. On the plus side, our curriculum tended to be technical in content and invariably relied on modern terminology.
I lost track of the big affable Russian until his name
surfaced in the news in the early 1980's. He was
reportedly kidnapped from the steps of a church in
Vienna, where he 
had been enticed by
the KGB. His wife went public with his disappearance to
put pressure on the U.S./CIA to negotiate his return. The
CIA, of course, would neither confirm nor deny that he
had disappeared. One story that made the rounds, was that
he had been a double agent all along and had just gone
back by prior arrangement.
Unable to move the U.S. government to action, Mrs. Shadrin told the story in a book written by Henry Hurt, exposing the details of her husband's disappearance. An extract of this book appeared in the Feb. 1981 "Readers Digest", titled, "The Spy Who Never Came Back." With the fall of the Berlin Wall and the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the real story of what happened to Nicholas Shadrin should have come out by now; but to my knowledge, the mystery remains. The KGB, who seem to have sold every secret in the archives, have not been forthcoming on this case. I have a very strong feeling that it was payback time for the KGB, and when Nick Shadrin set foot back in the Soviet Union, his fate was sealed.
__________________________________________________
Jean
d'Isle is a retired naval officer living
in Hawaii.
During his
military career he served in a number of overseas
assignments, including Germany, England, Spain, Viet Nam
and Puerto Rico. Following his retirement, he was an
adjunct faculty member of Hawaii Pacific University and
is currently under contract with the U.S. Navy at the
submarine base in Pearl Harbor.
Jean's column, View From d'Isle, is a regular feature of VegSource On-Line Magazine.