A massive cattle ranch in western Montana that has been owned by the same family for over seventy years and once served as a hideout for Soviet defector Viktor Belenko is for sale for $21.7 million.

The Rocking Chair Ranch, located north of singer Kelly Clarkson's ranch and next to The Ranch at Rock Creek resort, has been owned by the Vietor family since 1952.

“My mother and father were given the Rocking Chair brand on their wedding anniversary,” said rancher Willy Vietor, the head of the family. “They already had a smaller ranch – it's still known as Little Rocking Chair – when we moved to this one.” Bill McDavid of Hall and Hall, who listed the property last week with fellow rancher Deke Tidwell, said in a statement, “Rocking Chair Ranch is one of a rapidly diminishing number of multigenerational ranches in the West. With incredibly convenient year-round access, exceptional aesthetics, world-class fishing and diverse terrain from riparian to coniferous forest and pasture, the ranch has it all.”

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Belenko, a fighter pilot, flew his supersonic interceptor, the top-secret MiG-25 Foxbat, into Hakodate Airport in Hokkaido, Japan, on September 6, 1976, during an exercise and sought asylum in the United States, where he was hailed as a hero.

His defection was viewed by US authorities as a coup, as the MiG-25, which could fly many times faster than the speed of sound, was one of the Soviets' newest and most feared weapons.

But the aircraft, which the US government discovered when it was dismantled and returned to the Soviets in pieces, did not live up to its expectations as a match for the American fighter jets.

But Belenko offered the authorities something they never expected: invaluable insight into the low morale, horrific conditions and inner workings of the Soviet military.

Due to a set of circumstances that had all the makings of a Hollywood movie, he ended up working at the Rocking Chair Ranch.

The CIA agent who picked him up in Japan and escorted him to America was a good friend of Vietor's parents, Eleanor and Bill Vietor. During his interrogation, Belenko lived in Washington, DC for several years

“As a gift, the CIA asked him where he wanted to live and he said somewhere in the west of the country on a ranch,” Vietor said. “The CIA agent who knew my parents came with us.”

At that time, Vietor was “fresh out of the Air Force,” where as a captain he had trained pilots on the supersonic T-38 aircraft in Texas and Mississippi during the Vietnam War.

By the time Belenko arrived at the Rocking Chair Ranch, the CIA had already provided him with a cover. The Vietors were told that the man they were hosting, Viktor Schmidt, was a sales representative from Russia who had defected while on a trip to Finland.

The Vietors put him to work on the ranch, where he was trained and paid to cut hay, repair fences, and drive a stick-shift tractor.

It was neither the easiest nor the smoothest transition.

Belenko could barely speak English, had a very strong Russian accent and “he came from a completely different social background where men did not treat women equally,” Vietor said. “He always called my wife Carolynn 'the little woman,'” a phrase she did not find particularly endearing.

But, he added, Belenko quickly learned to adapt.

Belenko initially lived in the guest room of the Vietors' ranch house. He later moved into a bunkhouse on the ranch before purchasing a trailer and setting it up on the property.

“After he had been with us for about a year, we realized he was one of the most valuable defectors the United States has ever had,” Vietor said. “Once he realized we knew who he really was, we had a lot of conversations about our duties as pilots.”

During her life on the ranch, Belenko occasionally made mysterious trips to the east coast.

“When I asked him why he was leaving, he said 'scary stuff,' apparently a reference to working for the CIA,” Vietor said.

Belenko was divorced with two children at the time of his escape. He left the ranch around 1983 after marrying the kindergarten teacher of Vietor's son Justin.

The couple moved to Billings. They had two sons before divorcing and Belenko moving to the Midwest.

He and the Vietors stayed in touch.

“He was a free-spirited person,” Vietor said. “He would come over occasionally and stay for a few days. I called him after my 80th birthday party and found out he was in the intensive care unit at the hospital.”

The next call came three weeks later, in September 2023.

“It was his son – he told us he died of pancreatic cancer,” Vietor said, adding that he and the son are still in contact.

Belenko was 76 years old.

In 1980, Congress granted Belenko U.S. citizenship in recognition of his services to the country.

His stay at Rocking Chair Ranch gave the property a unique place in history.

The buildings of Rocking Chair Ranch are grouped on one part of the property. The 360 ​​square meter main house, built in 1932 and expanded in the late 1950s, has two stories, five bedrooms, three bathrooms and a half bath.

Other buildings include a barn for hay storage, two equipment storage buildings, an animal barn, a lean-to, a horse barn, an indoor riding arena, a calving barn, a weigh house, a store and a grain elevator. The ranch raises Black Angus cattle and has an abundance of game – elk, white-tailed deer and mule deer.

“This is some of the best fishing in the state,” Tidwell said.

The Rocking Chair Ranch, which stretches from the valley floor into the John Long Mountains, is located in an area just west of the Continental Divide.

The entrance to Rocking Chair Ranch, which spans more than 7,230 acres, is directly across the street from Philipsburg, an old western mining town whose main streets are lined with painted Victorian-era buildings and small shops and restaurants. The town, founded in the late 1800s, has a population of just 800.

“It’s a special place – there are lots of recreational activities, there’s a ski area and the town is charming,” Tidwell said.

If the CIA ever has reason to take in another defector, Tidwell said Philipsburg is so “under the radar” that it remains a perfectly viable option.

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Vietor, 80, who has worked on the ranch since he was nine, still pitches in whenever and wherever he is needed, whether it's herding cows or irrigating after floods. “I'm the old man, so I can decide what I do,” he said.

After all these decades, the family is selling because “we've hit a generational wall,” he said. “There are no children to take over.”

He and his 79-year-old wife, Carolynn, and other members of the Vietor family will continue to live on the ranch's 2,000 acres, which are not for sale.