defection

(Newser) - Thirty years after defecting to the US, at the height of the Cold War, tennis ace Martina Navratilova has regained her Czech citizenship, the Independent reports. The racket star became a US citizen in 1981. She plans to retain her US citizenship as well but she had some harsh criticism...

(Newser) - The CIA plotted to recruit Iranian officials to defect and managed to entice a handful to do so over the last two years, reports the Los Angeles Times. The secret program, begun in 2005, was intended to disrupt Iranian nuclear research. The primary criterion for recruitment, according to a former...

(Newser) - He was never interested in politics, but Rudolf Nureyev was a KGB scourge for decades after his 1961 defection. The famed ballet dancer’s colleagues were glad to see him go—‘Rudik’ was a prima donna to management and competition for fellow performers—but the state was incensed, the...