KGB'S THE ONE HAVING TROUBLE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000302480002-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 21, 2010
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: December 22, 1982
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/21 : CIA-RDP90-00552R000302480002-4
}?CC TC' POST
22 December 19b2
x T en(Ce do i quite well THE HOUSTON POST
22 DECEMBER 1982
T -ft.
e one a-" ng trouhle
_c one^? furies come in rashes; at the
ran-.Le of So%,iet agents working
c : (.. NATO) targes have been ex-
4 th , .?.:ec!'.n is having something of a
., r--X. ,-_-,u: :h' British intelli-
et r,~y a: e doing quite well -
na v ing the leaks. Of
cc twa were uncovered by
_....... , r` cy outside efforts (one by
f ;,r:c and not one of them repre-
n:ems :: one:: ;,t on of the Secret Intelligence
rI:. (One
:~+r?,. c ~....:.~'~ ?. (One was an at-
.~ -
_.t the Pr;fish :'.r ::; .:I-
i. the third a -rob-
-, su^.cessiu. t n-
_..,__.... r:,....na. security L.-cncy
_.., G cfinc. Pri-ne came was indeed dam-
:. f the cc:or.a:ny as to scoutity.
n.n e::i?_ nsi'?e _~,~late '::rveiliance project
1: ccngrcmt:- bctc:?ePrime was exposed
-- ri wife, ?.oohc turned :;in] in to the police
f::?Vst.._al o!fen.e s -:ins: children.. S'ecur;ty
a .gal..^. - tut
L n1 ?nys pr,5lem at such institutions -
in America as well as Britain. They employ
hordes of people, mixing military personnel
(or. short tours) with civil servants, making it
al: out impossible to maintain a tight, uniform
security program.
One case involved an Army enlisted man
tr ins to sell documents to the Soviets; he
was nabbed before he got to first base.
A third case involved a woman in the For-
eign Office, stationed in Tel Aviv, who had
taker an Egyptian lover. This is a standing
protlem, of which the Soviets are well aware.
AL' ernbar.sies have numbers of mature, single
ccreer women working in. them - executive
s?cretaries or actual diplomats - and in
countries with alien cultures they have a
proble:n. From 8 to 5 they are members of the
tc;:.m - after they're on their own. Embas-
cut a wide swath among the local
n ie,i co::ples have their own social
circles and single women are apt to be ig-
nored. In Asia, Africa and the Middle East,
it's hard to attract the interest of local males.
Enter the KGB.'In Djakarta, Kinshasa or
New Delhi, a charming Italian or Frenchman
may suddenly appear with flowers, candy and
theater tickets, and sweep such a prize off her
feet. Only too late does the victim discover
that Prince Charming has ulterior motives -
thte classified goodies - and it takes a brave
woman indeed to then walk into the security
office and confess, "A funny thing happened
to me on the way home from the office."
Such Lotharios are especially risky if they
are some other nationality than that of the
country where the embassy is; they are quite
apt to,e Soviet Illegals - KGB officers under
false, non-Soviet, identities. In this case, the
Lothario was an "Egyptian;" he may indeed
have been an Illegal, and may have been ex-
posed by the Illegals Support Officer, Vladi-
mir Kuzichkin, who recently defected to the
SIS.
The fourth case also involved a KGB Illegal
- who fell into FBI hands sometime before
1950: Using the identity of a German (who
actually died years ago in the Soviet Union),
he came to America via Canada, where he
had apparently been the case officer for Hugh
Hambleton, a Quebec professor who had spent
five years as a NATO official in Paris. The use
of an Illegal is prima facie evidence the KGB
regarded Hambleton as important - the
Canadians. regretfully, were unable to build a
court case and Hambleton, his fangs drawn,
was left at large. The British had no such
STAT
compunctions and arrested him the moment
he set foot on their soil.
Hambleton displayed the classic symptoms
of an exposed KGB. He didn't pass an; Ching
Important, for heaven's sake - just. he-ho,
trivial items on economics and oil po.;cy
which for some silly reason NATO had
fied. Mere bagatelles! The COSMIC ('"ATJ's
"Top Secret" classification) stuff? Darned :f I
know, it must have gotten in by accident.
Besides, he hadn't given anything to the Sori-
ets; his case officer was a Frenchman and he
was really -a secret double agent all along'
This is an advantage of using an Illegal -
who doesn't appear as a Soviet. When the
British arrested Harry Houghton and hi - 7 m's -
tress Ethel Gee in the 1960s for passing secre'F
from the Portland naval research station, to a
Soviet Illegal (Konon Molody, using tl. icen-
tity of the long-dead Canadian Gordon :.rroid
Lonsdale), Houghton claimed he t`cuzht
Lonsdale was an American naval office:. Such
cover stories are arranged by the Ule'ai in
advance - they make the agent feel rr- re
secure, with what looks like a plausible nat.
The courts, fortunately, don't swallov ;.ugh
guff; Houghton and Gee (not to mention lio-
lody) had a number of years in the cltr.: to
ruminate on the perfidy of the KGB. Hamole-
ton got 10 years.
There will always be penetrations of West-
ern institutions by the KGB; only a proportion
will ever be unmasked. The penetrations
might be lessened, and the number unmasked
raised. if the overworked counterespionage
forces of the West were given more public
support and not treated with derision on al-
most every hand. Actual abuses of their pow -
ers are minimal, despite the high tide of ego-
trippers grabbing headlines by smiting them
hip and thigh. They - we - need help, before
we're robbed blind.
Three decades of government service as a graduate of
the U.S. Naval Academy, a Navy officer and a CIA cih-ie'
In S,)vlet counterespionage operations gives Morris t.rs+-
her Sexperience in military and intelligence me++ers tie
roll "ad from the CIA after 17 years and began wrh,np +cr
The Post In 1972.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/21 : CIA-RDP90-00552R000302480002-4