The flight to the West of the Soviet cryptor, KGB Major Viktor Sheimov and his family was so well prepared that the USSR secret services for several years did not know anything about their fate, seriously considering even the version of the murder.
What did he do in the USSR
The historian of the special services, retired colonel Igor Atamanenko, in his book "Escape from the Lubyanka" writes that the future major of the KGB of the USSR Viktor Sheimov, after graduating from the Moscow State Technical University named after Bauman and after working in a defense research institute, he was invited to serve in the most secret division of the State Security Committee - the eighth main command, which was responsible for ensuring the security and functioning of the encryption communication of the USSR, government communications within the Soviet Union and abroad.
By 1980, Viktor Sheimov rose to the position of head of the department, which oversaw the encryption communications of foreign embassies of the USSR. The major was aware of all the cryptological nuances of his work, both current and under development and already used.
Escape motives
In his memoirs, published in America after fleeing abroad and harshly criticized by the Western press, Viktor Sheimov wrote that he talked a lot with dissidents, he hated the Soviet system as such, in Sheimov “the flame of a fronder burned,” an ardent fighter against totalitarianism in the USSR. Therefore, he decided to fight him at a distance, from abroad.
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Sheimov prepared for the escape for a long time and carefully, warned his wife about this and even casually announced to his mother about a “long business trip” (mostly so that colleagues from the special services would not immediately guess about the escape).
How did you manage to escape?
Igor Atamanenko writes that Viktor Sheinov took the first step to escape during a business trip to Poland. He managed to escape unnoticed from the building of the Soviet mission in Warsaw, took a taxi to the American embassy and there "offered himself" as a cryptographer - with the indispensable condition of flight to the United States with his wife and daughter. Warsaw CIA residents checked Sheimov and offered to immediately move to America. Having heard the refusal, we discussed the details of his behavior upon returning to the USSR before the "evacuation".
As Sheimov himself wrote, in the capital he met three times with a CIA agent in the Moskva pool. In order not to be left in the USSR as a "mole", he gave out secret information in doses, keeping the most important things to himself. Sheimov was not told until recently how he and his wife Olga and 5-year-old daughter would be transported to the West. Nevertheless, the family began to prepare for this on their own. They did not take unnecessary things, everything remained in the apartment so that the impression of a short absence of the owners was created. Sheimov, in preparation, tried to give credibility to the version of the murder of the family. Olga took train tickets to Uzhgorod. At work, the major said that at the weekend he would be with friends in the Moscow region, where the telephone connection did not work. The escape was scheduled for Friday to buy time until Monday.
There are various versions of the Sheimov family's escape. According to one of them, they crossed the state border through Poland by road. According to the special services, the Sheimovs were taken by plane from Vnukovo airport, making up Victor as a co-pilot, and Olga and her daughter were placed in boxes with allegedly used embassy electronics.
When were they missed?
As for the missing, they began to look for them at once. The escape took place in May, and only in December 1980 did the KGB come up with a version of the murder of the family: at that time policemen were detained, who killed a high-ranking official of the State Security Committee in the Moscow metro. Subsequently, it was found that the version of the murder of the Sheimov family was untenable.
Former deputy chairman of the KGB of the USSR Philip Bobkov wrote in his book that "… to great shame … it soon became clear that there was no family, they left." The historian of the special services Atamanenko clarifies: this "soon" stretched out for the KGB for several years, and, most likely, confirmation of Sheimov's betrayal was received by the Chekists only 5 years later, when the KGB recruited a high-ranking CIA officer, Aldrich Ames.
Don't make yourself a Snow Maiden, Victor
The scale of Viktor Sheimov's subversive activities against the USSR is not reported, this information is still classified. But Atamanenko writes that the Sheimovs were settled near Washington in a comfortable cottage, provided with security, free food and servants, and Viktor had their appearance changed.
The CIA's attempt to make Sheimov an honest fighter against the Soviet regime suffered a crushing defeat. The traitor himself contributed to this process. Western intelligence historian Philip Knightley wrote that Sheimov is not one of those spies driven by ideological and political motives: his "richly paid CIA" espionage is entirely based on self-interest. After the publication of Sheimov's book "The Washington Post" in the 1990s, the spy accused the spy of narcissism and outright lies, "Time" in the article "Shame on you, Victor!" urged the traitor "not to pretend to be a Snow Maiden", successfully beating his surname (shame in English "shame").
In the end, Sheimov fell out with the CIA. The British daily The Daily Telegraph wrote how he sued the intelligence agency, believing that they did not pay him extra for cooperation, and demanded a million dollars. The publication reported that the spy won the court, but it is not known exactly what amount he was awarded.
The Tribuna publication reports (the article is posted on the website of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service) that Viktor Sheimov is now engaged in a cybersecurity business in the United States.
Nikolay Syromyatnikov