By 1982, Koecher was rehabilitated by the KGB after Kalugin was demoted from chief of foreign counterintelligence and Koecher's past intelligence had been reassessed. In the 1980s, Koecher was one of a number of agents reactivated, when he was reproached by the StB intelligence officer Jan Fila in New York. He returned to work part-time for the CIA. Although the FBI asserts that they had been monitoring and surveilling Koecher and his wife from the early 1980s, it was at least three years before he was arrested.