July 13, 2010 9:06 PM
- Text
Iran Scientist Defected to US, Wants to Go Home
(CBS)
The U.S. government acknowledged Tuesday for the first time that an Iranian nuclear scientist who disappeared in the middle east last year is here in America.
Now Dr. Shahram Amiri says he wants to go home to Iran. Rarely is the human drama of espionage put on such public display. Amiri defected to the U.S. with secrets about his country's nuclear program. He wants to go home and face whatever that hard line regime has in store for him, reports CBS News national security correspondent David Martin. In an interview with Iranian television he said he could explain everything about what he called "my ordeal" over the past 14 months.
The U.S. says it's his life.
"Mr. Amiri has been in the United States of his own free will and he is free to go," said Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
That's not how Amiri told it when he first popped up on Iranian TV last April. He claimed he'd been kidnapped by the CIA while on pilgrimage to Mecca and tortured during eight months of captivity. He took that back in a second video, but Amiri is clearly going through a personal crisis.
"It's hardly the example you want to set if you're trying to lure out Iranian scientists and engineers who are part of Iran's secret nuclear weapons program," said David Albright of the Institute for Science and International Security.
Amiri had secrets but the Iranians had his wife and young son.
"Any time a defector leaves the country and his family is left behind, I mean the regime has tremendous leverage over him," said Albright.
Amiri is not the first defector to have second thoughts. During the cold war, Vitaly Yurchenko, a high ranking KGB officer defected and told the CIA about two spies inside American intelligence. Three months later, he went back to the USSR.
"It is extraordinary that he had the guts to go back and face the music. Well, there was no music. They didn't do anything to him," said espionage author David Wise.
Amiri's fate depends on whether Iran wants to make him look like a victim of the CIA or a traitor to his country.
Now Dr. Shahram Amiri says he wants to go home to Iran. Rarely is the human drama of espionage put on such public display. Amiri defected to the U.S. with secrets about his country's nuclear program. He wants to go home and face whatever that hard line regime has in store for him, reports CBS News national security correspondent David Martin. In an interview with Iranian television he said he could explain everything about what he called "my ordeal" over the past 14 months.
The U.S. says it's his life.
"Mr. Amiri has been in the United States of his own free will and he is free to go," said Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
That's not how Amiri told it when he first popped up on Iranian TV last April. He claimed he'd been kidnapped by the CIA while on pilgrimage to Mecca and tortured during eight months of captivity. He took that back in a second video, but Amiri is clearly going through a personal crisis.
"It's hardly the example you want to set if you're trying to lure out Iranian scientists and engineers who are part of Iran's secret nuclear weapons program," said David Albright of the Institute for Science and International Security.
Amiri had secrets but the Iranians had his wife and young son.
"Any time a defector leaves the country and his family is left behind, I mean the regime has tremendous leverage over him," said Albright.
Amiri is not the first defector to have second thoughts. During the cold war, Vitaly Yurchenko, a high ranking KGB officer defected and told the CIA about two spies inside American intelligence. Three months later, he went back to the USSR.
"It is extraordinary that he had the guts to go back and face the music. Well, there was no music. They didn't do anything to him," said espionage author David Wise.
Amiri's fate depends on whether Iran wants to make him look like a victim of the CIA or a traitor to his country.
-
David Martin David Martin is CBS News' National Security Correspondent.
Latest Now in CBS Evening News
- Evening News Online, 02.11.12
- Catholic votes and the Obama contraceptive quarrel
- Making the 1st ever US women's Olympic boxing team
- Ohio unemployment hits 3-year-low
- Who's really winning the 2012 GOP race?
- Mitt Romney wins Maine GOP caucuses
- In focus: The crisis in Syria
- Syrian forces launch new round of deadly attacks
- Some glimmer of hope in Ohio employment
- Boxing her way into history
- Evening News Online, 02.10.12
- Diplomat: U.S. military not the answer in Syria
- On the Road: Noah's Dream Catcher Network
- Salvaging the Costa Concordia
- Bank deal won't protect federal mortgages
- Ambassador Ford on military help in Syria
- Rare moment of relief in Syria
Latest CBS News Headlines
on Facebook
on CBS News
- Hamas strongman in Gaza rejects unity deal
- Houston recalled as happy in days before death
- Pre-Grammy gala celebrates Whitney Houston's life
- The nation's weather
on Facebook
- Whitney Houston 1963-2012
- Adele sings a cappella for Anderson Cooper
- Remembering Whitney Houston 1963-2012
on CBS News
