ESPIONAGE CASES RISE TO RECORD IN ARREST OF VETERAN CIA ANALYST

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000706950010-5
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 27, 2010
• Sequence Number: 10
• Publication Date: November 25, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Approved For Release 2010/08/27: CIA-RDP90-00552R000706950010-5
WASHINGTON TIMES
25 November 1985
Espionage cases rise
to record in arrest of
veteran CIA analyst
Court papers filed in the case said
Bi
Gertz
Mr. Pollard was interviewed by FBI
1 By
r
TIMES
THE
I
The weekend arrest of a former
CIA analyst on charges of spying for
the People's Republic of China for
more than 30 years has brought the
number of espionage arrests this
year to a record 15.
Larry Wu-tai Chin, 63, was ar-
rested Saturday in Alexandria. Two
days earlier, Jonathan Jay Pollard, a
Navy intelligence expert, was ar-
rested on charges of spying for sev-
eral foreign governments. His wife,
Anne Henderson-Pollard, was ar-
rested later and charged with gath-
ering national defense information.
In a year marked by increasingly
frequent and public espionage ar-
rests, the new cases have focused
attention on security and counter-
intelligence procedures in the CIA
and at the Pentagon. Intelligence ex-
perts say it is likely to speed security
reforms in the intelligence agencies.
Mr. Chin, who was an interpreter
in the U.S. Foreign Broadcast Infor-
mation Service, was charged with
spying for Peking since 1952. He is
believed to have received more than
$140,000 for the information.
FBI Director William Webster
P said in a weekend statement that the
arrest was the result of a continuing
"extensive investigation" by the FBI
and CIA.
On Thursday, the FBI agents ar-
rested Mr. Pollard on charges of spy-
ing for several foreign governments,
including Israel. Mrs. Henderson-
Pollard was arrested Saturday for
possessing classified documents.
Mr. Pollard, 31, a civilian em-
ployee of the Naval Investigative
Service, is suspected of supplying
secret data to Israel and Pakistan in
exchange for cash.
Intelligence sources said Mr. Pol-
lard's activities may have included
selling secrets to communist bloc
nations and that more details on the
case will be forthcoming. Some of
claims made by Mr. Pollard - in
questioning before and after his ar-
rest - about the scope of his con-
tacts with foreign governments were
being viewed skeptically by some in-
telligence sources.
agents last Monday and that follow-
ing the interview he told his wife to
"remove certain articles" from the
couple's Northwest Washington
apartment.
Mrs. Pollard then transferred a
suitcase with secret "national de-
fense" documents that was later re-
covered by FBI and Navy security
agents, the papers state.
The Pollards have been charged
with delivering "highly classified"
papers to representatives of
unnamed "foreign governments"
Mr. Pollard was arrested last
Thursday after Israeli Embassy of-
ficials escorted him out of the em-
bassy compound, where the FBI said
he was attempting to seek political
asylum.
The Chin and Pollard cases bring
the number of espionage arrests this
year to 15, with former CIA oper-
ative Edward Lee Howard the only
espionage suspect still a fugitive.
Howard vanished from under an
FBI surveillance net in New Mexico
last September and is believed to
have fled the country. Federal offi-
cials have said information from
Howard led Soviet authorities to a
CIA mole in the Soviet avionics in-
dustry.
By contrast, the FBI arrested only
eight people for espionage in the
past three years - two each in 1983
and 1984, and four in 1982.
Sen. Malcolm Wallop, a 10-year
veteran of the Senate Intelligence
Committee until this year, said he
believed the increase in espionage
cases involving government employ-
ees is due to counterintelligence re-
forms he and other members of the
committee initiated in the early
1980s.
"I think that some of the counter-
intelligence capabilities that we, and
mainly I, have forced on the [intel-
ligence] community are beginning
to bear fruit;' Mr. Wallop said in an
interview. "They didn't like them;
they do like them now"
But he said more widespread se-
curity and counterintelligence re-
forms are needed at the CIA and
other intelligence agencies.
"It's an interesting thing that what
they didn't want, they still boast of,
and what they still need, they con-
tinue to resist:' he said of several
counterintelligence programs pro-
posed by the committee but not im-
plemented by the intelligence com-
munity.
He urged the intelligence
community to adopt "two very pro-
fessional characteristics" toward
hostile intelligence agency threats:
"One is the humility to think you
could be fooled; and, two, the skepti-
cism" required in can U.S. intelli-
gence agencies are being fooled by
other services.
Intelligence experts say the Chin
case is a serious intelligence failure
because the transfer of CIA secrets
to the Chinese communists allegedly
continued for more than 30 years.
Sino-American relations and co-
operation have grown stronger in re-
cent years, but experts point out that
Mr. Chin is suspected of having
spied for China prior to the Sino-
Soviet split of 1959-60 when Peking
was closely allied with the Soviet
Union.
Although Mr. Chin held what ap-
pears to be a mid-level position as an
FBIS interpreter for 31 years, his al-
leged espionage activities have been
described as "very damaging" to
U.S. security. That damage, however,
was not as severe as that inflicted by
the Walker family espionage ring,
which transferred top secret Navy
communications codes to the Sovi-
ets, one intelligence source said.
Court papers identify Mr. Chin as
a staff intelligence officer for for-
eign documents at FBIS from 1970
until 1981, a position that would have
given him access to top secret mate-
rial. Passing such intelligence data
could have compromised U.S. intelli-
gence methods and sources with re-
gard to a wide range of geographic
and political intelligence, the source
said.
Former CIA official George
Carver, who worked on Asian anal-
yses among other responsibilities,
said he suspected the Chinese might
have sought information about U.S.
relations with Japan and Korea and
especially 'Ihiwan, the general mili-
tary posture of U.S. forces and the
state of U.S.-Soviet relations.
"The Chin case is serious because
it went on so long;' Mr. Carver said
in an interview
He said it will be difficult for the
public to know the full extent of the
national security damage, "but it
does indicate that our internal secu-
rity needs to be tightened up"
Mr. Carver, now a senior research
fellow at the Georgetown University
-oNT, "1AW
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Z.
Center for Strategic and Interna-
tional Studies, said the Chin case
"overlaps" problems of CIA counter-
intelligence and personnel security
problems.
"You have to guard against hostile
penetrations, but you also have to
guard against hiring the kind of peo-
ple who are vulnerable to external
pressure;' he said. "[CIA employees]
don't like someone looking over their
shoulders, they don't like someone
looking into their private affairs,
[and) they don't like people bringing
them into suspicion because of
things they might do."
Mr. Chin worked with the U.S.
Army in 1943 and 1944 when, ac-
cording to court papers, he was re-
cruited by a communist identified as
"Dr. Wang." He also worked as an
interpreter in the American Consul-
ate in Shanghai, China, in 1948.
Following the communist take-
over, Mr. Chin moved to the Ameri-
can Consulate in Hong Kong as a
secretary/interpreter and in 1952
joined FBIS, which monitors
broadcasts and publications
worldwide.
He was paid $2,000 (Hong Kong
dollars) in 1952 by Peking's intelli-
gence service to provide the loca-
tions of prisoners of war from the
Korean War, the court papers state.
During his alleged spying activities,
Mr. Chin met with communist Chi-
nese intelligence officers in'Ibronto,
Hong Kong and Peking. At those lo-
cations, Mr. Chin allegedly turned
over undeveloped rolls of film con-
taining photographs of CIA doc-
uments, the court papers state.
After leaving the CIA in 1981, Mr.
Chin allegedly received $50,000 in
cash during a 1982 trip to Peking and
in 1983 provided Chinese officials
with the name of a FBIS employee
who Mr. Chin believed was vulner-
able to recruitment as a Chinese
agent.
The investigation of Mr. Chin be-
gan in December 1983, according to
the court documents.
Lawyers for Mr. Chin said they
will appeal his detention at a bond
hearing set for Wednesday. If con-
victed, he faces a maximum sen-
tence of life in prison.
The Pollards each could face a
10-year prison term and a $10,000
fine if convicted.
Former CIA analyst Larry Wu-tai Chin, 63, is taken handcuffed over the
weekend to an Alexandria court to be formally charged with espionage.
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