Every reporter in New York knows Paul Browne, the long-time spokesman for NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly. What most of us didn’t realize was that Browne was once recruited to be a Soviet spy.
In 1973, Browne was a 24 year-old journalism student, sitting alone at a cafeteria at the United Nations, where he was taking a class. Three men approached his table. One of them, Alexander Yakovlev, claimed he was a broadcast journalist from Moscow. “Within days, the two were meeting twice a week,” WYNC notes.
“They wanted me to infiltrate the Jewish Defense League. He wanted me to turn over specific documents. They wanted to recruit someone who would turn out valuable information ten years later,” Browne recalls.
Back in the day, Browne wrote about his experience for the Washington Post. The recent bust of a long-buried Russian spy ring brought his story back to the surface.
Yakolev, it turned out, had a nose for talent. By the 80s, Browne was working for U.S. Senator Pat Moynihan, who sat on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. By the 90s, he was serving at Kelly’s side.
Browne worked with the FBI for more than a year, figuring out what the spies were after. The G-men warned Browne that the KGB might entice him with an attractive woman.
“Even though I was young and prepared to sacrifice for my country,” Browne says, “that did not materialize.”
