The Day I Met A Soviet Spy In My Hometown Of Belvidere, Illinois

Left: Soviet Spy Glenn Michael Souther
Right: The Book On The Souther Case

You always think of History as happening somewhere else, to someone else. But one day back in 1986 a met an active Soviet spy in my hometown of Belvidere, Illinois. How many people do you know who've ever met a Soviet spy?

Here's a summary of Glenn Michael Souther from the Defense Security Service:

SOUTHER, GLENN MICHAEL. On 11 July 1988, Soviet newspaper Izvestia announced that Souther, a former navy photographic specialist who disappeared in May 1986, had been granted political asylum in the Soviet Union. Just before his disappearance, Souther, a recent graduate with a major in Russian Studies from Old Dominion University, was questioned by FBI counterintelligence agents. According to one source, investigators were acting “on more than suspicions, but didn't catch him in the act of espionage, and thus couldn't hold Souther at the time he was questioned.” While attending college, Souther had been assigned as an active reservist to the Navy Intelligence Center in Norfolk, Virginia, where he had access to classified information. Souther's sudden disappearance was of considerable concern to FBI and Navy officials since the former Navy enlisted man had held special security clearances while on active duty with the Sixth Fleet in the early 1980s. During that time he had access to highly classified photo-intelligence materials. Souther joined the Navy in 1975 and left active duty in 1982 with the position of photographer’s mate. According to the Soviets, the former Navy specialist had asked for asylum because “he had to hide from the US special services which were pursuing him groundlessly.” Described as a bright but undisciplined young man by former teachers and acquaintances, Souther reportedly had wanted to become a US Naval officer, but had been turned down as a Navy officer candidate. On 22 June 1989, at the age of 32, he reportedly committed suicide by asphyxiation after shutting himself in his garage and starting his car. Russian newspapers suggested he had been disappointed by aspects of Soviet life after defecting in 1986 and was prone to depression.

From the summer of 1985 to the summer of 1986 I was in a carpool with Souther's mother, Shirley Wiergacz, along with two other people. The others all lived in Rockford, and I would meet them in the parking lot of the old Eagle food store on Bypass 20 in Belvidere. We then all shared a ride for the 50 miles to Elk Grove Village (near O'Hare), where we all worked. Shirley Wiergacz was an executive secretary to the President of the Loyola Paper Company.

Shirley had the unique ability to talk all the way from Belvidere to Elk Grove Village, and all the way back again. Every Day. Drove me nuts. But we got along, in the manner of people who have to get along get along. And for all her annoyances, she was really a decent person who tried to do he right thing. One of her favorite topics of conversation was her son Glenn. She talked on and on about how he loved Russian Culture and Russian Literature, and knew a lot about Russian History. I thought this was odd for a former Navy enlisted man, but I just figured that the nut hadn't fallen too far from the tree, so to speak.

Then one spring day in 1986 he joined us one day for the ride into Elk Grove Village. He was about like I figured he'd be. A very polite smart ass, an updated Eddie Haskell. The photo pretty much captures it, I think. But all in all it was a relatively nice 50-mile drive in that day, as it was a change of pace from listening to his mother talk. But still, what an Odd Duck.

As summer came our carpool broke up, and in August I started a new job in Milwaukee. But I heard from one of the other carpool folks about Souther's disappearance in Italy. I figured it was probably drug-related or something like that. It never entered my mind that maybe the guy was a spy. Like I said, that sort of stuff always happens to somebody else, certainly never in boring old Belvidere.

A couple of years after I moved to Milwaukee Souther popped up on Soviet TV, and a year after that he was dead. Every now and then I would try to tell this story to friends, but they would just look at me funny. It would have been more believeable to them if I had said I had been abducted by space aliens. So I just stopped.

Then just a couple of years ago I discovered that a book, The Spy In The Russian Club, had been written about the Souther case all the way back in 1990. It's out of print now, but you can find a used copy pretty easy and pretty cheap. It'll tell you more than you really want to know about Souther's short, shabby life.

I really feel sorry for Shirley Wiergacz in all this. Yeah, she was annoying, but she could well say the same about me. Those of you who have ever been in a carpool know how it is. But no parent deserves to go what she had to go through, first with her son defecting to an enemy nation, and then with his mysterious (I think) death. I tried to send her a note a couple of years ago, but the letter came back "Addressee Unknown". So maybe she's passed on, I don't know. It's a lot different when you see this kind of thing close up. If I hadn't met him or his mother, I would have said what a Bozo he was for defecting to the Soviet Union in 1986. I mean, 1986?  But from this vantage point, all I feel is sad for his Mom.

Comments

[David Larson]

Tom,
Not unlike your story, I am suprised at how far our class has gone from its tiny roots in the 60's and 70's into the complex world out there. A fellow who worked for me from an old Belvidere family lived in Walworth WI on Lake Geneva and swears he met Gorbachoff (miss spelled - former Soviet Prime Minister) as a fellow visiting the Abby in Lake Geneva WI with a large birth mark on his forhead. Dave Grimm was a reporter covering the visit of a soviet digntary staying there while traveling in the US for the Regester Star. He met this man at the bar and had drinks with him. This was long before he was Prim Minister.
Dave Larson

[Laurie O]

It was equally as weird for me when the FBI called me in my Connecticut home in the late 80's to ask what I knew about Glenn Souther, a boy I had dated when I was fourteen years old. He was polite, nice and kind of strange. My parents loved him and had him over many times after we stopped going out together.