 This incident was the subject of Gordon Thomas' and Max Morgan-Witts' 1974 novel, "Voyage of the Damned" and its 1976 movie adaptation.In 1970, Simonas Kudirka was denied U.S. sanctuary when he attempted to defect from the then-Soviet Union by jumping from his "mother ship", 'Sovetskaya Litva', onto the USCGC Vigilant when it was sailing from New Bedford while Kudirka's ship was anchored at Martha's Vineyard.Kudrika was accused of stealing 3,000 rubles from Sovetskaya Litva's safe and when the U.S. State Department failed to help him, Kudrika was sent back to the Soviet Union, where he was convicted of treason and sentenced to ten years of hard labor but because Kudirka could claim American citizenship through his mother, he was allowed to return to the United States in 1974.