Declined Defection
At the close of World War II, Pose’s brother, Werner, was a prisoner of war of the Russians. Pose arranged for Werner to be transferred to Obninsk and he employed Werner as a technician in Laboratory V.
When released from the Soviet Union in 1953, Werner, returned to Germany. Since his family lived in West Germany, he was sent there. Werner passed through the Friedland Camp upon entering West Germany. There, the Scientific and Technical Intelligence Branch (STIB) of the Control Commission for Germany - British Element (CCG/BE), recognized his potential and took an interest in him. So did the “Org”, the Gehlen Organization, which would later become the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND, West German Federal Intelligence Service). Werner was eventually used by the CIA to try to induce Pose to defect to the United States in 1958. Pose rebuffed the attempt.
The Org and STIB had an interest in a chemist in Obninsk who Werner knew. When the chemist was allowed to go to Germany in 1955, Werner introduced the chemist to representatives from the Org and STIB. Unfortunately for Werner, the chemist had been recruited by the Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (MfS, Ministry for State Security) of East Germany. This eventually resulted in Werner being arrested by the MfS when he tried to cross over into East Germany. Werner was tried in April 1959 and sentenced to six years in prison.
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Famous quotes containing the words declined and/or defection:
“He asked me whether I would not go with him to his house; I declined it, from an apprehension that my spirits would sink. We bade adieu to each other affectionately in the carriage. When he had got down upon the foot-pavement, he called out, “Fare you well;” and without looking back, sprung away with a kind of pathetick briskness, if I may use that expression, which seemed to indicate a struggle to conceal uneasiness, and impressed me with a foreboding of our long, long separation.”
—James Boswell (1740–1795)
“The most dangerous follower is the one whose defection would destroy the whole party: hence, the best follower.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)