Jonas Pleškys

Jonas Plaskus or Jonas Pleškys (10 March 1935 – 14 April 1993(1993-04-14) (aged 58)) was a Soviet Navy submarine tender captain born in Giliogiris, Lithuania and died in California, United States.[1]

In 1961, he sailed his vessel from Klaipėda to Gotland in Sweden, although his planned destination was Tallinn. His vessel arrived on 7 April 1961.[2] The Soviet authorities sentenced him in his absence to death by firing squad, but the CIA hid him, first in Guatemala and later in the United States. The tender, essentially a barge, was returned to Soviet custody.[3]

This incident was one of two that inspired Tom Clancy in his writing of The Hunt for Red October.[4] The other was the 1975 mutiny aboard the Soviet frigate Storozhevoy.

Plaskus was relocated to Seattle, Washington, where he attended the University of Washington and initially lived with the family of Julian Jenner to improve his English. Later, he worked as a programmer/analyst in Silicon Valley in the 1970s. In 1979, he accepted a job in Caracas. He revisited Lithuania briefly in 1992.[3]

He was a brother of actress Eugenija Pleškytė.[4]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "California Death Index". RootsWeb.
  2. ↑ "Diplomat övertog befälet på ryska avhopparfartyget". Svenska Dagbladet (in Swedish). 8 April 1961. p. 3.
  3. 1 2 "Homo Lituanus". Lithuania in the World. Retrieved 2008-01-19.
  4. 1 2 Boyle, Marion (2005). Search For Freedom: The Man From Red October. Klaipėda: Eglės leidykla. ISBN 9955-542-21-7.


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