Soviet Union The Odd Case of M. Orlov

The obituary read like the opening page of a spy novel. Mikhail Yevgenyevich Orlov, alias Glenn Michael Souther, who had "made a large contribution" to Soviet state security, had "died suddenly" at 32. For the KGB leadership committee, which signed the article in the military newspaper Red Star last week, Orlov's death was a "huge loss." But could this Orlov really be Souther, a onetime U.S. Navy photographer who had defected to the Soviet Union more than a year ago? In calling Souther by a Russian name, the obituary seemed to suggest that the deceased had actually been a Soviet mole, sent to live in America at an early age and assigned to burrow into the U.S. military.

In a surprising show of glasnost, General Vladimir Kryuchkov, head of the KGB, hurried to correct that impression. Yes, he told reporters in Moscow, Orlov was Souther, who first surfaced in the Soviet Union last July claiming that the FBI had been harassing him. "I lost my future," he said. But Souther acquired his Russian name only after he was granted asylum last year. What was news was that Souther, as Izvestia reported last week, had been spying for the Soviets "for a long time" and had acquired the rank of KGB major.

Souther had aroused suspicions before his defection. Graduating from high school in Cumberland, Me., in 1975, he enlisted in the Navy and was trained as a photographer. Based in Italy at Sixth Fleet headquarters from 1979 to 1982, he married an Italian woman. They later separated, and in 1986 his estranged wife approached a Navy officer to report Souther as a spy. Souther had too much extra money, she claimed, and took Government documents home in violation of regulations. Authorities initially dismissed her accusations as an ex- wife's spite, but now suspect that Souther was recruited by the KGB during that tour in Italy. Kryuchkov refused to confirm that but said more details of Souther's career in espionage would be published. "We can be quite open about this," he said. "We have our spies, and you have yours."

Souther left the Navy in 1982 to study Russian literature at Virginia's Old Dominion University. He also worked as a reservist at the Atlantic fleet intelligence center in Norfolk. He was assigned to a laboratory processing satellite-reconnaissance photos and also might have been privy to sensitive communications intercepts. The investigation into his ex-wife's allegations was reopened in 1986, and after questioning by the FBI, Souther defected. In spite of his warm reception by the KGB, his marriage to a Russian and the birth of their daughter, he was not happy in Moscow. "I haven't found my niche exactly," Souther told Soviet television viewers last year, but he had decided "to live here or not to live." He apparently decided on the latter course: according to Kryuchkov, Souther had committed suicide "in a nervous state of mind."