Monitor Editor
KEYSTONE HEIGHTS—A former Moscow station chief for the Central Intelligence Agency died in Keystone Heights in January after retiring to the Lake Region in 2018.
Murat Natirboff, 100, also served as a CIA agent in Africa, Asia and Europe. He retired in 1989 and moved to the Lake Region in 2018.
Natirboff was born in the Crimean Peninsula. He grew up in New York and served in the Marine Corps during World War II.
During 1986 he served as the CIA station chief in Moscow and was linked to the arrest of U.S. News correspondent Nicholas Daniloff.
The American Journalist was arrested on Sept. 2 for espionage. The Soviets later claimed Natirboff instructed Daniloff to establish a relationship with a Soviet citizen who later handed over classified information to the Americans.
Natirboff ended his official role as counselor of regional affairs at the U.S. Embassy and left the Soviet Union prior to Daniloff’s arrest.
Daniloff was allowed to leave the Soviet Union after pleading no contest to the charges.
Some sources also claim that while serving as Cairo station chief during the 1980s, Natirboff helped organize Mujaheddin resistance to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.
Natirboff’s son, Daniel Natirboff told the Washington Post that his father died on Jan. 10 from metabolic encephalopathy.
