Vitaly Yurchenko was a KGB colonel who ostensibly defected to the United States from Italy in 1985. While being debriefed in Washington — after giving information that led to the uncovering of burned-out KGB spies Ronald Pelton and Edward Lee Howard and confirming the importance of John Walker and his son Michael — Yurchenko walked out on his CIA minder at a Washington restaurant and walked to the Soviet Embassy. The next day he held a press conference in which he claimed he'd been drugged and kidnapped by the CIA in Rome. He returned to the USSR, was restored to his KGB status and given a medal. Former CIA officer Tennent H. Bagley, in his book Spy Wars, says Yurchenko was still working in the KGB in 2002, and that his burning of Pelton and Howard was done to protect "mole" Aldrich Ames in the CIA by drawing attention away from him as the traitor who had recently betrayed several agents in Moscow. It's interesting to note that "former" KGB officer Oleg Kalugin, who said Spy Wars was trash, gave five reasons in 2003 for believing Yurchenko was a true defector who'd just gotten homesick or some-such thing. It's also interesting that two of the female CIA officers who eventually uncovered Ames, Sandy Grimes and Jeanne Vertefeuille, were also convinced (God knows why) that Yurchenko was a true defector.