Sergei Kourdakov, a former KGB agent and Soviet naval intelligence officer, defected from the USSR at the age of twenty. A year later we met at my Federal Government office in Washington DC. We were watched and followed. “Even you could be spy,” Sergei whispered. My book, A Rose for Sergei, is the true story of our time together.

Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Timing is Everything


I met Sergei Kourdakov 40 years ago when I worked as a secretary for the Federal Government in the Washington DC area.  I was 21, the same age as Sergei.  My boss introduced us when Sergei visited our office in Rosslyn, VA in the fall of 1972.  There was an instant attraction and Sergei and I saw each other as often as possible from September until just before his tragic death on January 1, 1973.  Our story is one of joy, love and heart break.  It is a story that I have seldom discussed.  Time has a way of changing everything though.  The controversy surrounding his life and death, even after all these years, has weighed heavily on me.  It is my hope that by telling this story in A Rose for Sergei that some understanding of the person Sergei had become will shed some light on his miraculous life.  I know I could not have attempted to write this story at any other time in my life.  Timing really is everything.