SPY SUSPECT SEEN AS A HARD WORKER

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000403480004-2
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 12, 2012
• Sequence Number: 4
• Publication Date: October 6, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/01/12 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000403480004-2
ARTICLE APPEA
\ ON PAC
NEW YORK TIMES
6 October 1985
SPY SUSPECT SEEN
AS A HARD WORKER
1~
were some odd things about Edward L.
Howard, a 34-year-old financial for*-
caster for the State of New Mexico, but
to the people he worked with he was the
quintessential bureaucrat, a bit la-
conic, perhaps, but smart, wise in gov-
ernment affairs and hard-working.
"Basically, as far as the guy is con-
cerned, he was real nice, got along with
the staff, did a good job, sang happy
birthday at occasional office parties
along with everybody else," said his
former chief, Phil Baca, director of the
Legislative Finance Committee for the
New Mexico Legislature.
The odd things were that he made oc-
casional telephone calls from a coin
phone halfway around the rotunda
from his office and he was involved in a
drunken shooting scrape a year and a
half ago, for which he was put on proba-
tion.
He was treated for alcohol abuse,
and in Washington, a Congressional
source said Mr. Howard was asked to
leave the Central Intelligence Agency
in 1983 after a polygraph, or lie-detec-
tor, test suggested that he had taken
drugs and had engaged in petty theft.
Mr. Howard had been an employee of
the intelligence agency for two years
before moving here to work in July
1983.
He Disappeared 2 Weeks Ago
Two weeks ago, after inquiries by
agents of the Federal Bureau of Inves.
tigation, Mr. Howard quietly walked
away from his job. He left his office key
in an envelope, a mysterious note of
resignation that cited unexplained
.'personal reasons" for his departure,
and a request that any severance pay
be given to his wife. Mary, in Santa Fe.
Fe left her a note, asking her to tell
their 2-year-old son, Lee, "I think of
him and you each day until I die."
Edward Lee Howard, born Oct. 27,
1961, the sat of a retired Air Force
master sergeant who called him "a boy
to be proud of," is being sought on a
Federal warrant charging him with'
selling intelligence secrets to the Soviet
Union.
As the son of a career military man
who enlisted, Mr. Howard lived a life
on the move. Ho graduated from an
American high school in Branden, Eng-
land, then returned to the United States
almost immediately to eater the Uni-
versity of Texas at Austin, in Septem-
ber 19M. He graduated with honors
with a mm bu loess administra-
tion and the Peace Corps,
serving two years In Central America,
from August 1972 through August 1974.
By WAYNE lUNG
Spd.1 to The Now Yost Times
SANTA FE, N.M., Oct. 5 - There
.He continued to work for the Peace
Corps, as a recruiter in Dallas, and in
4908 he married Mary Cedarleaf.
Mrs. Howard, who works part time in
a dentist's office in Albuquerque,
refuses to talk to reporters.
Howard Obtained a Master's
After his marriage, Mr. Howard
went to work for the Agency for Inter-
national Development in Peru as a loan
officer in project development. He con.
tinued with the agency until 197'9, then
attended the American University in
Washington and obtained it master's
in business administration.
Shortly thereafter, in January 1981,
he took a job with the Central Intelli-
gence Agency and remained with the
agency until June 1983. The Federal
Bureau of Investigation has said Mr.
Howard had accees'to "highly classi-
fied information concerning United
States intelligence matters."
In an affidavit filed in support of the
charge of espionage against Mr. How-
ard, the F.B.I. maintains that he was
paid by the Soviet Union to provide
classified information "relating to
United States intelligence sources and
methods."
When Mr. Howard came here, he
said he had worked for the State De.
partment but had resigned because the
department wanted to post him to Mos-
cow and he did not want to go.
In his job as an economic analyst, he
earned $33,012 a year. He prepared
forecasts of the state's economy, and
his co-workers said he was very good,
not particularly outgoing but hard-
working and seemingly dedicated.
After his sudden departure, a mem-
ber of the state's executive b.^anch said
that the state had lost an extremely ef-
fective peacemaker between the execu-
tive and legislative branches.
Roy Soto, deputy commissioner of
the state land office, said he knew Mr.
Howard fairly well and was so im-
pressed with Mr. Howard's knowledge
of state government that he offered
him a job with the land office. Mr. How-
aid turned him down, saying he wanted
to stay with the legislative committee,
M8. Soto said.
Mr. Howard worked often and well
with reporters, and one of them re-
called him as being candid and occa-
sionally helpful with a news tip. But the
same reporter said that he had noticed
that Mr. Howard occasionally left his
office to make calls at a pay telephone
well away from his office, even though
he had his own telephone and the use of
a telephone credit card.
Also unusual were his arrest and re-
sulting guilty plea to a charge of aggra-
vatedbattery after an incident on Feb.
26, 1964, when he got into a drunken
fight with three men on a Santa Fe
street and pulled a gun, which dis-
cbarged, apparently accidentally, into
the roof of the automobile one of the
men was driving. Mr. Howard was sen-
tenced t pulatfive ionthat he probation with
ergo treat-
ment for alcoholism.
As part of the'court proceeding in
that case; Mr. Howard presented a
number of letters from state and
Federal officials attesting to his good
character. An official for the Agency
for International Development, for ex-
ample, described him as "a hard-work-
ing and effective representative of the
U.S.,,
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/01/12 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000403480004-2