THE WOOING OF AMERICIANS TO WIN NATIONAL SECRETS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000301850010-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 25, 2012
• Sequence Number: 10
• Publication Date: June 23, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/09/25 :CIA-RDP9O-009658000301850010-7
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A~T1ClE A ~~~''
~N PA6E~o~'~~ ~'
PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER
23 June 1985
The wooing of Amerccans
to win national secrets
By Aaron Epstein
In~Wrar Washinteon 8urew
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-
nag~e. 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 r-
c~n o e o c a wor n or
v e non et- oc an u n
omattc an commerct aci es
n e n e ' s are to a Bence
o,~era vas. i'haf's 775 sp~-
r s networ , acco ng o the FBI,
is "snore 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
US. 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 M~nu-
ments.
Over the last 20 years, foreign in-
telli ante en eve o n c as-
st in ormation on t e an
tnuteman miss es, nut ear a ease
t t es, atr a ease o sae -
tes ra tec no an i~l&
lions aser researc entr a t-
gence Agency operations,
aetenses, nacre c es an , n e
case o e eg a er spy &
sum new are.
ere are more people facing espi-
onage charges is the United States
than ever before, the FBI says.
An American double a ant for 10
years, to en a on y as m
Told a ante vernmental
f rs ommttee s rmanent su om-
mtttee on avast a one n t a
e , t e vtet~u v ant o t e
L' , is rec tug a " rva ve, re en -
ess an s e bE~'lffiff-
mem rs an Bove en am-
p oyees."
Smith said that "on any given day,
many Americans sad others fmm
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 espio-
na a cases _~ a ease e -
ence enc , wfifc xreens e
vast ma or o n
cans to .sacra ,
of Ame cans w owe ,
voluntee to turn over c
is orma on to ore gn agen
y 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 ttse on anybody."
Disgruntlement was a distant sec-
ond to money in the compilation of
motives for American espionage, fol-
lowed by blackmail and ego saEisfac-
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 Ii6ve 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-anddagger
glamor of his job as a Norfolk, Va,
private eye.
To Pentagon intelligence analysts,
the mast reveattng textooox case of
To a tnvo v am o en
an encan engineer, anaas encan engineer, ana
an a secret
agen w o was among a our ceg
u'f rye ~fe3 r'f a3edZor Z~~estez`n
agen on a r n use 11.
~e ore gn agent onn~a
combination of human frailties that
led to betrayal.
Report on
the espionage .issue
Their association began inaooent-
ly enough. It was in the fall of 1977
that Bell first met Zachats~d, the
charming young West Coast.manager
of the Polish Americas Machinery
Co.
They played tennis sad shared a
mutual interest in the area's flo~r-
fishing aerospace indastry. Bell, then
37, was as engineer far the Hughes
Aircraft Co. wtth 2S years of experi-
ence is defense work. Zacharski,
then 23, sold iadustrlal equipment to
aerospace firms.
Bell then was emerging from a low
point in his life. His 19-yearold son
had died in a- camping accident in
Mexico, his ~9-yasr marriage had
ended in divorce and alimony pay
meats- of 5300 a weely his debts had
driven him into bankruptcy, and the
government was after him for back
taxes.
"Zaaharaid 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 bees close to
his .mother and quite distant from'
me since our divorce,:' -Bell said in
subsequent testimony.
In mid-1978 Zacharaki began ask-
ing Bell for help, ianocnons help at
first. 7icharski asked Bell to make
sales contacts for him. Bell did, and
Zacharski paid him 13,000 for .his
efforts as "a consultant." Thea Za-
charski asked for printed materWs
from Hughes that would alert him to
sake opportuaiges.
It was not aatil nearly a year after
they had met that Bell first gave
secret matarW to Zacharski. At the
tennis court in October or November
1978, Bell showed his Polish friend a
copy of Bell's proposal for a din
gained radar system to enable tanks
to fool enemy targets. "I was proud of
it, and I gave it to him," Bell recalled.
Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/09/25 :CIA-RDP9O-009658000301850010-7
 Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/09/25 :CIA-RDP90-009658000301850010-7
~?
When Bella building was convert
ed to condominiums, 7echarski gave
Bell 512,000 to help him buy his
apartment. Soon BeU was microfilm-
ing documents on advanced radar
designs and calling them to 2i-
charski. Bell made several trips
abroad to meat Polish agents. With
the money he received, he bought a
red CadWac, a 52,000 necklace for his
second wife and a vacation to Rio de
Janeiro.
For almost two yeas Bell said he
thought Zachanki worked for an
American company and was simply
doing some industrial spying to get a
jump on competitors.
Bell was sentenced in December
1981 to an eight-year prison term.
Zacharski's life term ended on the
bridge is Berlin on Jane 11.
What the case amply illttshated,
Pentagon analysts wrote. was how "a
skilled aalesmaa and master persuad-
er, using the seemingly harmless
guise of a commercial rather than a
diplomatic podtion, oontd create a
false impression of "friendship and,
g~ ~"
2acharski was willing to apead'at-
mast ayear "simply making friends
with his p insinuating him-
self into hisissp~er oral life, meeting
and befriending h1s family,
his character train and 11awaiearn~
ing his likes and dlslika (and shar-
ing theml, discerning his weaknesses
and, above ail, hb needs."
The barrier between as innocent.,,
relationship and a criminal conspir~
acy was bridged, the Defense Depart-
ment analysb said, by "first request-
ing unclassified and seemingly
innocent items" and by "offering the
prospect of a consulting arrange. I
meat as a prelude to espionage."
Sgt. Smith's decade of experience
as a US. double agent disclosed a
similar pattern of KGB operations.
Smith told the Senate subcommit-
tee that when he was stationed in
Bangkok and had acres to classified
data, he often played chaos is a bar.
A man he came to know as "Tori"
approached him one day. They chat-
ted abort chess and met in succeed-
ing days in coffeehouses and restau-
rants at Tori's expense.
"1`ori wanted me to get to know,
accept and trust him," Smith said.
Finally, almost hesitantly, he men-
tioned that a military phone book
from my unit would be of use to him,
and he asked me to get a copy of it for
him. The phone, book Iprovided for
my friend a few days later was gladly
received and Tori insisted that I a~
cept several hundred dollars for all
my trouble....
..
And ao my conditioning contin-
ned, as Tori requested next a staff
wiring diagram and then other ap-
parently harmless, unclassified
items: I was generously rewarded for
all of them....
"He was simply getting me in the
habit of furnishing what he re-
gnested ... Ije never directly asked
me to be a spy. At some unspoken
poi~t,~all that simply became uader-
Smith said that militltry personnel
are frequent targets for Soviet and
other hostile agents. "Quite literally,
it could happen to anyone," he said.
P~-hi~l~l~~i~' A. Parker assistant director
of-tbe ~ s me sauce sioa.
sa at et- oc agents a prey
on foreigners w o wor se ve
po ors n e e to
e sa to.
minority member. of the Seaa~>g
committee, said that one weakness of
the U.S. national security system is
that more than 10,675 people from
countries of eastern Earope have
been - or are being -cleared for
access to classified materials eves
(hough there ie no reliable way, of
checking on them.
'"!'hat's an awful lot of people -
ahnast 11,000 people on whom we
have inadequate backgrounds,"
Nunn said..
But perhaps the biggest flaw in the
complex . US system of security
clearances is the failure to periodi-
cauy reexamine cleared individuals
for clues to changes in their lives
that. may make them. more suscepti-
ble to the tactics-ofYoreiga.agent.4.
Studies of espionage. canes show that
the targets of Soviet agents are isdi?
viduals who ah'eady have- been
cleared for. access fo defense secrets.
But, as the Senaoe~ committee heard
in AprU, the Defense Investigarive
Service is so understaffed and over-
worked that it could take 10 years to
catch up on its huge backlog of re
quired re-examinations.
Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/09/25 :CIA-RDP90-009658000301850010-7