WASHINGTON DOSSIER
October 1982. Page 21.
UNDERCOVER: Christmas Eve, 1979. A Scandinavian city. Dr. Boris Korczak, a double agent feeding the CIA with KGB secrets, answers a foreboding knock at the door. His best friend in the KGB stands outside in the snow, weeping. The man's mission: kill Korczak. Instead he warned him. But in the three years since Korczak's escape and subsequent flight to the metropolitan Washington area, he has been bitten by a poisonous snake that was tossed into his bedroom window and attacked by two assassins armed with knives. The lug-nuts on his car's wheels were loosen- ed. And, a year ago in August, he was shot with a poisonous bacteria pellet while shopping at a Giant Food store in Vienna, Va. As told, John Le Carre's suspense novels pale beside Korczak's story.
"The KGB is still out to kill me, says Korczak, who a year later suffers serious physical ailments from the pellet's bacteria. -Looking more like the Ph.D. in Art History that he is than a secret agent, Korczak says, ''I am a person who has decided to fight declare war on the dirty fingers of the Soviets and their collaborators.
Believe the
US. is worth protecting. In clear
English, one of 11 Languages he speaks
fluently, Korczak makes it known that he
carries a gun. But his ongoing struggle
with Communism-which started in his
homeland during the 1956 Budapest Uprising - recently has taken a different
approach. With a budding organization
called "Together International," consisting mostly of Eastern Europeans "who share the scars of Communism," Korczak wants to inform Americans of
Soviet dangers. He also has started
around-the-clock surveillance on all
Soviet diplomats and embassy officials 70 percent of whom he claims are involved in "Kagebeshnick" schemes.
"We will not harass them or break any
laws," he says pointedly, "but we will
walk the streets they walk and hound
them to stick to their official duties. lf
they have nothing to hide, they
shouldn't worry about us. I am very
patriotic to the US., but this policy of
not spoiling our relationship with the
good-buddy Soviets, I don't under-
stand. I have lived behind the Iron Curtain.
DON OLDENBURG
