The Littlest Defector

On July 28, 1982, a shy, neatly dressed teenaged boy appeared before a congressional panel in Washington, D.C., and told a group of congressmen what he had already said countless times to judges, lawyers, psychiatrists, police officers, and social workers: that he didn’t want to return to the USSR, and that if he was forced to, he would probably spend the rest of his life in prison.

The boy was 14-year-old Walter Polovchak. Two years before, he had packed up his belongings in a plastic bag and left the home he shared with his family in Chicago, rather than return with his parents to their native Ukraine. The Chicago police, who picked up the runaway child, were directed by the State Department not to return Walter to his family.

LT

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Ludmilla Thorne

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On July 28, 1982, a shy, neatly dressed teenaged boy appeared before a congressional panel in Washington, D.C., and told a group of congressmen what he had already said countless times to judges, lawyers, psychiatrists, police officers, and social workers: that he didn’t want to return to the USSR, and that if he was forced to, he would probably spend the rest of his life in prison.

The boy was 14-year-old Walter Polovchak. Two years before, he had packed up his belongings in a plastic bag and left the home he shared with his family in Chicago, rather than return with his parents to their native Ukraine. The Chicago police, who picked up the runaway child, were directed by the State Department not to return Walter to his family.