THE CASE OF ESPIONAGE IN THE EMBASSY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000302000002-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 21, 2012
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: April 13, 1987
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/09/21 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000302000002-8
ARTICLE AIML
U.S.NEWS & WORLD REPORT
ONPAGE 13 April 1987
The case of
espionage in
the embassy
1111 They are bright and alert looking,
handsome young soldiers. Yet it now
appears that these sturdy Marines?"a
few good men," to use the Corps's fa-
mous phrase?have allowed themselves
to be drawn into the most elemental of
espionage snares, one that could result
in the most extensive and damaging
intelligence loss in American history.
Veteran espionage operatives and devo-
tees of Le Carre spy fiction are familiar
with the term for the snare, the honey
trap. In essence, the Marine- spy scan-
dal in Moscow was just a simple mar-
ketplace swap: Sex for secrets.
How could it have happened? In
hindsight, it seems so obvious. Young,
unmarried Marines are sent to so-called
hardship posts around the globe on 15-
month stints to provide security for U.S.
embassies and diplomatic missions.
Naturally, instructors tell the young
Marines, whose average age is 24, to
- avoid contacts with residents ofthe host
country, particularly women, and to re-
port any advances to superiors. In Mos-
cow, where the Soviets run scores if not
hundreds of female agent---known as
"swallows" in the language of the spy
trade?the lesson is even more heavily
emphasized than elsewhere, sources
say. But judging from what is already
known about the conduct of some of the
Marine guards there, the lesson seems
to have been ignored, and supervision
seems to have been woefully inadequate.
"I look to the leadership," says Brig.
Gen. Walter Boomer, director of Ma-
rine public affairs and former security-
guard commander. "These young Ma-
rines for the most part will not let you
down if it's clear to them what it is
they're supposed to do."
Costs that dollars can't cover
Whoever ultimately shoulders the
blame for the appalling security break-
down, it had to have been clear to the
Marine guards involved that their ama-
tory adventures would come with a high
price, not only for themselves but for
their country. With three Marines in
custody and two more to be questioned
in the affair this week, analysts for the
Naval Investigative Service say the
damage done may take years to undo.
Just in terms of dollars and cents, U.S.
News has learned, cost estimates of up to
$100 million have been provided for
replacement of electronic coding equip-
ment and new security measures.
But the real cost, in terms of lost and
compromised intelligence, probably will
be far greater. It is now believed that,
thanks to the secret listening devices
planted in the most secure areas of the
embassy compound with the aid of at
least two Marine guards, the Soviets
have been reading all of the coded com-
munications sent from Moscow over the
past year. As a result, analysts say, the
KGB has identified virtually every Sovi-
et contact for U.S. intelligence agents.
Even more embarrassing, the bugging
devices may also have given the Soviets
advance knowledge of U.S. negotiating
tactics last fall during the detention of
U.S. News Moscow correspondent
Nicholas Dan iloff and prior to the sum-
mit between Ronald Reagan and Mi-
khail Gorbachev in Reykjavik?where
the Soviet leader is widely regarded as
having outmaneuvered the President.
"America," says Representative Daniel
Mica (D-Fla.), who will be in Moscow
this week examining the embassy secu-
rity problem, "has lost big in this one."
As Secretary of State George Shultz
prepares to visit Moscow next week for
meetings with Soviet Foreign Minister
Eduard Shevardnadze, U.S. officials
are putting on a brave public front, but
privately they express fears that the So-
viet eavesdropping capabilities may
force the State Department to fly over a
secure communications facility before-
hand or have Shultz use the coded ra-
dio on his Air Force jet to talk with
Washington.
For such an enormous debacle, its
beginnings were quite simple. In Sep-
tember of 1985, Marine Sgt. Clayton
Lonetree ran into a woman named Vio-
letta Seina in the Moscow subway.
Continued
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Seina is about 5 foot 9, with gray eyes
?and shoulder-length brown hair. She
worked as a receptionist in Spas? ?
House, the American ambassador's res-
idence. According to records of Lone-
tree's interrogation by the Naval Inves-
tigative Service, Seina missed her
subway stop at that first meeting and
continued talking with him on the
train. "We got off together at a later
stop and began a long walk together,"
Lonetree recalled, "talking about vari-
ous subjects, including American mov-
ies, books, food, likes and dislikes, etc."
They agreed to see each other again,
the records of the interrogation show,
and Lonetree saw Seina again at a Ma-
rine Corps ball in November, 1985. An
American who recalled seeing Seina at
several embassy parties described her,
with her statuesque figure and fashion-
able clothes, as "a presence." Indeed,
one source recalled, Seina was once
crowned Queen of the Marine Ball.
The corporal and the cook
At the same time Lonetree's relation-
ship with Seina seemed to be blooming,
another Marine, Cpl. Arnold Bracy,
was apparently becoming involved in
an affair with a Soviet woman who
worked as a cook in the embassy. By
the summer of last year, Bracy was
discovered in the midst of sexual rela-
tions with the woman in the apartment
of an unnamed U.S. attach?t the em-
bassy. The woman has since been iden-
tified by the CIA as a KGB swallow.
Investigators are still sorting out the
details of the Marines' activities, and
the sequence of events that led to the
bugging of the embassy is still far from
clear. What is known is that, at some
point in their relationships with the two
women, Lonetree and Bracy helped
sneak Soviet agents into the most se-
cure areas of the embassy on the sixth,
seventh and eighth floors. One well-
placed source in Moscow has told US.
News that the agents were able to tap
into the electric typewriters on those
floors with electronic devices capable of
intercepting incoming and outgoing ca-
ble traffic.
The fear now is that' these and per-
haps other types of bugs were placed
even in the embassy's supersecure
"bubble," which diplomats refer to as
the "glass house." Those who have
seen the device describe it as a kind of
windowless "room within a room" that
seats seven people. Furniture includes a
table, chairs and a typewriter, and the
walls consist of a double layer of clear,
plastic-like material. The walls are
lined with a metal-based sheeting that
deadens sound. As far as is known by
the United States, the security of the
bubble was compromised only once be-
fore, in the mid-1970s, when an Ameri-
can diplomat had his shoes resoled and
a tiny listening device was later found
to have been implanted in them. The
diplomat had participated in several
conversations in the bubble before the
bug was detected.
With a third Marine, Staff Sgt. Rob-
ert Stufflebeam, in custody in the
evolving sex-and-spy scandal, some in-
telligence experts say it is likely to do
more damage than the defection in
1985 of former CIA agent Edward
Howard; in fact, as U.S. intelligence
analysts begin to re-evaluate the prob-
lems and setbacks attributed to How-
ard, some are coming to the conclusion
that the leaks of sensitive information
may have come from the Soviet bugs in
the embassy.
However wide the scandal spreads,
U.S. officials cannot claim to have been
blind-sided. A report sent to the Presi-
dent two years ago by his advisory panel
on intelligence warned that the Moscow
embassy was vulnerable to Soviet espio-
nage, and one board member, Texas
billionaire H. Ross Perot, was said to be
so angered by the lack of action that he
quit in disgust. Last year, a Senate panel
warned then U.S. Ambassador Arthur
Hartman of a similar threat, but Hart-
man is said to have dismissed the warn-
ing. "Part of the problem," says a Senate
staffer, "is that the State Department
just says, 'Ho hum.' They take the posi-
tion that gentlemen always read other
people's mail." ?
by Brian Duffy with Donald Baer,
Charles Fenyvesi and Melissa Healy
0Z?
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/09/21 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000302000002-8