Jonas Pleškys

Pleškys was born on 10 March 1935 in Tverai in Žemaitija in western Lithuania. In 1948 his parents were deported to Siberia because of their connections to the partisans. He has three adult brothers and sisters that were able to escape the ethnic cleansing. At age 15 he was expelled from school for anti-Soviet activities.[3]

In 1961, he sailed his vessel from Klaipėda to Gotland in Sweden, although his planned destination was Tallinn. His vessel arrived in Sweden on 7 April 1961.[4] 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 was returned to Soviet custody.[5]

This incident was one of two that inspired Tom Clancy in his writing of The Hunt for Red October.[6] 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.[5]

He was a brother of actress Eugenija Pleškytė.[6]

• List of Eastern Bloc defectors