Russian defector now secretary

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32458, 19 November 1970, Page 7

Russian defector now secretary

<W.Z. Pre«« Asin - Copyright) MEXICO CITY. Mrs Raisa Kisilnikova, a shapely blond defector from the Russian Embassy in Mexico City, is now working as a secretary in an advertising agency. “When you go overseas for the Russians you get a book of no-nos an inch thick.” She said in an interview. “I have a wonderful feeling of freedom now. I explain how marvellous it is, just to be able to wear slacks instead of a skirt, if I want, in my own apartment?” Her defection story, not fully told before, is filled with cloak-and-dagger action in a workaday setting walking a dog named Charcoal to a secret rendezvous in Chapultepec Park; a decisive meeting in a Sears Roebuck restaurant; bumping; into a Russian secret agent with “eyes like a reptile” in a supermarket. She gained a post as translator in the commercial

.in Mexico in 1968 after her husband died in Moscow. “The worst thing about , Embassy life was the indoctrination lectures. Every /Wednesday night from 7 to ' 9 the whole staff, wives in- > eluded, gathered to listen to ■ a diplomat lecture on com- ■ I munisrn. “NOTHING NEW” “This was nothing new. ■ They begin the weekly lec- : tures when you first start ! school. ! “When you grow up and ■ go to work you must keep r going to the lectures, in i i Moscow or Mexico City. li “We were strictly forr' bidden to have social contact with Mexicans,” she t said. I “You get this great big i book of things you cannot - do. You must read it and • sign it You cannot wear > slacks ever, not even off duty, i “You are not supposed to ■ read certain books, or go to ;; certain movies. You must : never leave the Embassy exi cept in the company of another Russian.” Her decision to date a I Mexican raised complica|ations. She lived on Embassy property. To meet her boy ■ friend, she tried various pretexts. “Sometimes we would meet in the supermarket where I was buying groceries,” she said. “Other times, I would walk the boss’s dog, a black spaniel named Charcoal." “I would walk the dog in Chapultepec park. My friend would drive by. The dog and I would get in the car. “I’m sure 1 was often shadowed. Once in the supermarket, I actually bumped I into the agent I knew, spying ion me. He looked embarrassed.” Last January an Embassy friend warned her punishment was impending. “They were going to send me to Cuba or Bulgaria. In the Russian Foreign Service they punish you by transferiring you from a capitalist

to a Communist one.” She and her growing circle of Mexican friends took stock of her situation. 1 “My father was; sent to Siberia by Stalin. My parents 1 are both dead. “I was raised by a Frenchwoman and her Russian husband, in Moscow. My husband was dead. Our two sons died of leukemia. “My only living relative is a sister I hardly know. Every- ■ thing in Russia depends on 1 influence and connections. I would have no future there. “The K.G.B. (State security) would ‘interrogate’ me. They would discover I was a 1 daughter of an ‘enemy of the State.’ “NOT GOOD” “I didn’t know exactly ■ what would happen to me. It would not be good. I had studied languages. I speak English, Spanish, French and German. Mexican friends assured me I would have no trouble starting a new life here. Still, I hesitated.” On Friday, February 6, the dreaded telegram arrived from Moscow. “I was ordered to return to Moscow via Brussels. The next day I called a Mexican friend who said he would help me. He met me and my

boy friend in the restaurant of the Sears store.

“I decided to ask asylum. But it was Saturday. My friends couldn’t find anyone in the Ministry. “Finally they located one Mexican official at home. He said Mexico would be happy to give me asylum. “I went to stay with a Mexican family over the week-end. On Monday I was officially placed under the protection of the Mexican Government.” Then the Soviet Ambassador was allowed to talk to her. “He came in with the chief of the consular section of the Embassy, the man in charge of running our private lives. “They said if I returned to Russia immediately nothing would happen. But if I tried to go home later, they said, it would be ‘dangerous.’ I said I did not want to return ever.” “Now I have papers that say I may live and work in Mexico as long as I want. “I have a nice job and a decent apartment, For the first time in my life. I am free. The Mexicans are wonderful. No-one is watching me all the time. If I want to see a movie, or read a book, no-one says, ‘You can’t do that.’