Yuri Alexandrovich Bezmenov (Russian: Ю́рий Алекса́ндрович Безме́нов; December 11, 1939 – January 5, 1993; alias: Tomas David Schuman[1]) was a Soviet journalist for Novosti Press Agency (APN).

In 1970, as a member of the Soviet mission in New Delhi, India, Bezmenov defected to the West and was re-settled in Canada pursuant to an arrangement between American and Canadian security agencies.

During his second year, Bezmenov sought to look like a person from India; his teachers encouraged this because graduates of the school were employed as diplomats, foreign journalists, or spies.

In 1965, Bezmenov was recalled to Moscow and began to work for Novosti Press Agency as an apprentice for their classified department of Political Publications (GRPP).

[2][6][7] According to a statement provided to the Delhi Police by the so-called Soviet Information Centre, on February 8, 1970, Bezmenov was set to see a screening of the American film The Incident with two of his colleagues.

[3][7] In order to save face with the embarrassment of defection of a Soviet agent, the Delhi residency officially reported he had been abducted, and his son, his closest surviving relative, was given financial compensation.

The Soviet ambassador to Canada phoned then-prime minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau to complain about Bezmenov’s Russian-language broadcasts.

[6] Bezmenov stated that the KGB successfully used the Soviet Ambassador to Canada to persuade Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau to apply pressure to have him removed from that position.

[7] In 1983, at a lecture in Los Angeles, Bezmenov expressed the opinion that he "wouldn't be surprised" if the Soviet Union had shot down Korean Air Lines Flight 007 in order to kill Larry McDonald, an anti-communist Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives.

[4][14]Under the cover name assigned to him by the Canadian RCMP, Tomas D. Schuman, Bezmenov authored the book Love Letter to America.

[2] The author's biography of the book states that Bezmenov lived a life similar to Winston Smith, from George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four.

[15] In 1984, the Washington Post reported Bezmenov publicly denounced admission of a Soviet cruise ship to Los Angeles during the 1984 Summer Olympics, stating that they were placed there under the guise of entertainment, but maintained electronic surveillance equipment aboard to monitor radio and telephone communications.

[7] Since his death, Bezmenov's "Soviet subversion model"[a] has been studied and interpreted by faculty and staff at the Joint Special Operations University (JSOU) to analyze historical events, including the decade-long Russian campaign that preceded the 2008 Russo-Georgian War.

[17] His work has also been cited by senior director of UPenn's Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, and former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, Michael R.

[26][2] Clips from his interviews and lectures have been used to promote conspiracy theories about COVID-19 and vaccination mandates[3] and fabricated Communist infiltration in Western governments.