WASHINGTON — The sun was up Friday when two airplanes, one coming in from the West, the other from the East, touched ground and circled toward one another at Vienna International Airport. What happened next was a scene unlike any other in the history of U.S.-Russia spydom.
The Vision Airlines jet from the U.S. carried 10 convicted Russian spies. It taxied slowly and parked just yards from its counterpart from Moscow’s Emergencies Ministry with four men accused of spying for the West on board.
In the next 60 minutes or less, figures emerged from each plane. They climbed into a black van that ferried them to the other jet. Door hatches were locked, engines fired up and the planes took off.
The transfer was complete.
In the U.S., Peter Earnest, a longtime CIA operative who founded the International Spy Museum in Washington, recalled that in the “old days of the Cold War,” such a handoff would have taken place on a bridge somewhere, with each side advancing nervously toward the other. Today, meeting under open skies near an airport runway is a “new-age spy swap.”
“It is clear both governments want to get this behind them,” he said. “So what happened in Vienna is an example of mutual trust.”
Two of the four men freed by the Russian government got off the aircraft in Britain, while the other two continued on to the United States, said a senior U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity. A plane thought to be carrying the Russians later landed at Dulles airport outside Washington.
Denver Post wire services
