The Spy Who Returned to the Cold

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Many are resigned to never knowing the whole story behind Yurchenko and how much he helped--or hurt--U.S. intelligence. As Republican Senator William Cohen put it last week, pondering the world of espionage is akin to stepping "into an infinite line of mirrors where it's impossible to detect reality from reflection." The world may never even learn the ultimate fate of Yurchenko, who is now probably undergoing another heavy bout of debriefing, this time, of course, by the KGB. "Yurchenko will go home to a hero's welcome, be put on the lecture circuit there, and then, when nobody's looking, be shot--if he's lucky," predicts a senior official of the U.S. intelligence community. That scenario assumes, of course, that Yurchenko is what he appears to be: a onetime defector who changed his mind. Yet sometimes, even in the land of mirrors, the most obvious image is the real one. --By James Kelly. Reported by David Halevy and Gregory H. Wierzynski/Washington