[url=]http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20020723/ap_wo_en_po/russia_obit_howard_3[/url]

If memory serves me Howard was a CIA agent who was supposed to be sent to Moscow around 84, a plum assignment, but he failed a lie detector test and was tossed out of the CIA. He eventually defected to the Soviet Union and provided classified info to the commies that resulted in some of our agents in Russia being captured and killed.

I heard a segment on the radio with a man who interviewed him, and I think wrote a book about him. He claimed that Howard was a pretty heavy drinker and suspects that that had something to do with his defection (in addition to his disgrace at losing his job). I thought it was a little suspicous at first that a 50 year old former CIA agent "died in a fall down some stairs" but maybe if he was still drinking a lot, on the other hand maybe Mother Russia got tired of paying for that nice Dacha.