Word: defections
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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There seems little chance that police officers in any numbers would defect to the antigovernment side. Although nearly half the South African police are nonwhite, black activists consider them sell-outs to the apartheid system. They have been the primary target of Molotov cocktails and flaming tire "necklaces" in the townships. The army of 76,000 on active duty and 140,000 ready reservists is almost entirely white...
While Navratilova enjoyed her return, another Czechoslovak sports figure headed the other way. Michal Pivonka, 20, a center on the national ice-hockey team, appeared in the U.S. to announce that he was defecting to join the Washington Capitals. "My ambition is to play in the National Hockey League," said Pivonka. "I can hardly wait for the season to begin." He was the second Czechoslovak hockey player to defect in a week: four days earlier, Defenseman Frantisek Musil had joined the Minnesota North Stars...
...needed help, and in a hurry. But a Soviet military intelligence analyst who wanted to defect to the West recently was almost not allowed to. When this official approached the gates of the U.S. embassy in Tunis, he attempted to make himself understood to the Marine guard. The befuddled guard pointed toward the visa section. The official dutifully took his place at the end of a lengthy queue of Tunisians submitting their visa applications. Soon, he became jumpy; the KGB might already be on his tail. He approached the officer in charge, who promptly ushered the upstart back...
...main character was Herbert Meissner, 59, a leading East German economist, who was discovered shoplifting a bathroom fixture in West Berlin. After requesting to speak with West German federal intelligence service officials, Meissner signed statements declaring that he had been spying for East Berlin since 1978, and sought to defect to the West on his own free will...
...widespread speculation about the shocking death of the University of Maryland basketball star. Bias, 22, who had just been drafted by the Boston Celtics, had been in perfect health. He did not, as rumored, have the genetic disorder Marfan's syndrome. Nor did he suffer from any previously undetected defect in his heart or circulatory system. Bias had simply taken some cocaine--perhaps for the first time--and, as a direct result, died...