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The Defection of Simas Kudirka (1978)
Cold War Drama at Sea
The Defection of Simas Kudirka is a made-for television movie based on the actual defection of a Lithuanian sailor to a U.S. Coast Guard cutter in 1970. Simas Kudirka, played by Alan Arkin, jumps ship only to be returned to the Soviet ship by force. After spending time in a Soviet prison, Kudirka is allowed to immigrate to the United States after it is learned that his mother was born in New York.
The movie nicely details the political and military ramifications from the fallout of one of the most shameful episodes in Coast Guard history. I was a sailor on board one of the two Coast Guard cutters involved in the filming of the movie in 1977. The movie was filmed in Portsmouth, NH, the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery Maine, and off the coast of New Hampshire and southern Maine. The final scene shows Simas Kudirka (Arkin) and his wife Genna (Shirley Knight) reviewing the crew of the Coast Guard Cutter Vigilant, the ship onto which Kudirka jumped. The actual ship shown in the movie was the USCGC Decisive at its home port of New Castle, NH.