THE WOOING OF AMERICANS TO WIN NATIONAL SECRETS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000100510001-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 23, 2010
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: June 23, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/23: CIA-RDP90-0
AMUA
ON PAG
PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER
23 June 1985
0552 R000100510001-5
The wooing of Americans
to win national secrets
By Aaron Epstein
hM,.iror RWhinston avrn
WASHINGTON - An FBI agent tes-
tifies about how he became a spy for
the Soviet Union. Members of a U.S.
Navy family are accused of espio-
nage. Spies are swapped at high noon
in the middle of a Berlin bridge
linking East and West.
Rarely has such a series of events
drawn public attention so dramati-
cally to the enemy agents in our
midst. Their assignment: To careful-
ly and insidiously dupe vulnerable
Americans into selling the nation's
deepest secrets.
The FBI believes that about 30 per.
cent o c or or
Soviet Union, e - oc an Cuban
oma c and commercial act es
in the United es are n e e c
opera vas. 'I' it at's 775&
s networ according o the FBI,
is "more numerous, sophisticated
and aggressive than ever before."
It seeks to find, woo and entrap
malcontents, bankrupts, alcoholics,
adventurers, drug abusers and other
likely targets among the 4.2 million
U.S. military, industrial and civilian
personnel with access to government
secrets. So plentiful are those secrets
that, if stacked, they would stretch
higher than eight Washington Mnnu-
ments.
Over the last 20 years, foreign in-
telli ence agents have obtained clas-
sified in ormation on the and
Minuteman missiles, nuclear defen
C i _ties. a eensev e-
tes technology and nsta a-
tions laser research, Central n e -
ence Agency operations, NATO
defenses, secret c es annu, in twee
case o the alleged r spy
submarine warfare.
There are more people facing espi-
onage charges in the United States
than ever before, the FBI says.
An American double agent for 10
years, in en
only as set. Suaw.
told the Senate Governmental7M
fairs om tees rmanent su m-
mittee on investigations In ApriFthR
e e et equivalent o e
iA, isdirecting a "pa ve, re en -
iess and 31ELUOU assault
tary members an government em-
ployees."
Smith said that "on any given day,
many Americans and others from
Western nations are being cultivated
and assessed for potential use by the
KGB. Of these, some will be selected
for a pitch."
An evaluation of "significant onto.
nags cases e Lmense
once en , which
M
vast o
cessto sect ,usmmezmm
Americans wso were Gluts
volunteers to turn over ?U31MW
orma on to foreign
room mutly was
money.
Smith said the Soviets "think all
Americans are money-hungry. They
believe money talks, that all Ameri-
cans believe that. That is something,
I think, they would-use on anybody."
Disgruntlement was a distant sec-
ond to money in the compilation of
motives for American espionage, fol-
lowed by blackmail and ego satisfac-
tion. Other reasons for spying in-
cluded naivete, a Russian heritage,
ideology and sex.
In recent cases, a new breed of spy
has surfaced - a person who is ex-
cited by the intrigue of spy thrillers
and seeks to live a fictional fantasy.
Earlier this month, Richard W.
Miller, the first FBI agent to be
charged with espionage, testified
that he was acting out "a James Bond
kind of fantasy" when he became
sexually involved with a Russian
woman accused of being a Soviet spy.
FBI agents have reported finding
stacks of spy novels in the homes of
many American spies. John A. Walk-
er Jr., accused mastermind of a naval
spy ring, read spy novels and spoke
glowingly of the cloak-and-dagger
glamor of his job as a Norfolk, Va.,
private eye.
To Pentagon intelligence analysis,
the most reuse TOXIDOOK case o
e involved am o n
n a can a neer an
Ma
an .ac , a secret
agent who was among the four
cap
tu spies rya ea rot Z western
agents on a Ber June 11.
in Bell, the foreign agent ova
combination of human frailties that
led to betrayal.
Report on
the espionage issue
Their association been innocent.
ly enough. It was in the fall of 1977
that Bell first met Zacharskl, the
charming young West Coeat.manager
of the Polish American Machinery
Co.
They played tennis and shared a
mutual interest in the area's flour-
ishing aerospace industry. Bell, then
57, was an engineer for the Hughes
Aircraft Co. with 25 yews of experi-
ence in defense work. Zacharski,
then 2S, sold industrial equipment to
aerospace firms.
Bell then was emerging from a low
point in his life. His 19-year-old son
had died in a- camping accident in
Mexico, his S?year marriage had
ended in divorce and alimony pay-
ments of $200 a week, his debts had
driven him into bankruptcy, and the
government was after him for back
taxes.
"Zaaharski and his wife moved
into the apartment complex, and I.
began to play tennis [with himl-on a
daily basis, He slowly became my
best friend. He was about the age of
my oldest son who had been close to
his mother and quite distant from
me since our divorce,'. Bell said in
subsequent testimony.
In mid-1978 Zacharski began ask-
ing Bell for help, innocuous help at
first. Zacharski asked Bell to make
sales contacts for him. Bell did, and
Zacharski paid him SS,000 for his
efforts as "a consultant." Then Za-
charski asked for printed materials
from Hughes that would alert him to
sales opportunities.
It was not until nearly a year after
they had met that Bell first gave
secret material to Zacharski. At the
tennis court in October or November
1978, Bell showed his Polish friend a
copy of Bell's proposal for a dis-
guised radar system to enable tanks
to fool enemy targets. "I was proud of
it, and I gave it to him," Bell recalled.
STAT
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/23: CIA-RDP90-00552R000100510001-5