AIDE TO PRESIDENT OF WEST GERMANY IS ARRESTED AS SPY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000504230008-3
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 24, 2012
• Sequence Number: 8
• Publication Date: August 26, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/01/24: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504230008-3
ARTICLE APPF.~RF~D 1
ON PAGE
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AIDE TO PRESIDENT
OF WEST GERMANY
IS ARRESTED AS SPY
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BONN, Aug. 25 - West Germany's
espionage scandal widened today with
the disclosure that a secretary in Presi-
dent Richard van Weizsllcksr's office
had been arrested on charges of
spying.
The 30-year-old woman, whose name
was not given, was the fifth West Ger-
man Government employee to be idea
tified this month as a probable East
German spy. She was arrested tonight,
according to the federal prosecutor's
office in Karlsruhe.
On Friday, East Germany an-
nounced that a senior West German
counterespionage officer, Ham Joa-
chim Tiedge, had defected and sought
asylum. Two Bonn secretaries and a
West German Army messenger are
thought to have preceded him covertly
to East Berlin.
. Few Details Are Given
Alexander Prechtel, a spokesman for
the prosecutor's office, gave few der
tails on the latest case but said the
woman arrested tonight was not Mr.
von Weizs>icker's personal secretary.
The President's powers are limited
and many of his functions are cere-
monial, but he is regularly given top-
secret briefings. A former Mayor of
West Berlin and a member of the gov-
erning Christian Democratic Party,
Mr. von Weizsacker has been Presi-
dent since May 1984.
According to a well-placed official,
the secretary arrested tonight was re.
cruited as a spy by an East German
agent who became her lover - a well-
established espionage technique in
Bonn. Her role appears to have been
discovered as counterintelligence
agents reviewed secretaries' records.
NEW YORK TIMES
26 August 1985
An Apparent Patters
The evident targeting of the Presi-
dent's office, a relatively modest bu-
reaucratic entity, hinted at an East
German pattern of placing agents at
many levels of the West German Gov-
ernment. Some reports said the secre.
tary had worked in a section dealing
with military and foreign policy.
One of the secretaries who vanished
this month had worked for 12 years for
Martin Bangemaom, who is Economics
Minister and chairman of the Free
Democratic Party. The other had been
a bookkeeper for an organization of
refugees from Eastern Europe.
On Friday, the day Mr. Tledge's d`
fection was reported, the State Depart.
ment said the United States would con-
suit with West Germany to determine
the damage to their mutual security in-
terests. There was no comment from
defection, since he condoned the offi-
cer's unruly behavior and spurned ad-
vice not to promote him.
In a clear effort to lay responsibility
on Mr. Hellenbroich, the Interior
Minister told a television interviewer
that while Mr. Tledge's personal prob.
lems may have been well known inside
the Cologne agency, the information
had never reached his ministry.
Mr. Zimmermann also complained
that various measures to tighten and
improve internal security had not yet
been approved by Parliament.
Resistance to some of the measures
has come from the opposition social
Democrats and from the Free Demo.
crats, who have sought to portray
themselves within the governing coali-
tion as defenders of individual rights.
"Those who have believed up to now
that security is a second-rank issue will
have to see that security should be very
first rank," Mr. Zimmermann said.
the *hits House or the State Depart-
plant today on the latest developments.
Chancellor Helmut Kohl has studi-
ously avoided stepping into the spy
scandal, and he went to southern
scheduled talks with President Fran. On Tuesday the Interior Minister will
Avis Mitterrand. Interior Minister report to the Cabinet and a parliamen-
Friedrich Zimmermann has been left tary intelligence subcommittee.
to take the heat. Despite East Germany's announce-
Mr. Zimmermann is a protf of ment that Mr. Tiedge had sought asy-
Franz Josef Strauss, the Bavarian Pre. lum, Ludwig Rehlinger, s a state secre-
mier and an occasional foe of the Chars-' in the ministry responsible for
cellor. He promised today to overhaul relations with East Germany, has been
"What we need now Is a new concept
for combating Eastern espionage,
particularly the activities of the East
German intelligence services," he told
the newspaper Bild in an interview that
is to be published Monday. "What is ur-
gently needed is a reorganization of our
,counterespionage and the development
of new operative investigation meth-
In television interviews this evening,
Mr. Zimmermann conspicuously
passed up opportunities to defend Heri-
bert Hellenbroich, who until Aug. 1 was
the president of the Federal Office for
the Protection of the Constitution, the
Cologne-based agency where Mr.
Tiedge worked for 19 years.
First Political Victim
Mr. Hellenbroich has been promoted
to head the Federal Intelligence Serv-
ice outside Munich. But well-placed of-
ficials have predicted that he will be
the first political victim of the Tiedge
Meeting With Chancellbr
Mr. Zimmermann is to inform the
Chancellor on Monday an the implica-
tions of the defection of Mr. Tledge,
who bad been responsible for catching
designated to approach Wolfgang
Vogel, a well-connected East Berlin
lawyer, to seek an interview with the
defector.
Bonn officials gave little hope for an
opportunity to talk with Mr. fledge,
but they said they were intrigued that
the East Germans had not shown Mr.
Tiedge on television. There has been
speculation here that East Germany's
fairly low-key treatment of the defec-
tion is motivated by a wish not to se-
verely damage ties with Bonn.
The Leipzig Fair, an international
showcase for the East German Govern-
ment, will open in a week, and it is
traditionally an occasion for high-level
contacts between the Germanys. Until
the spy scandal, Mr. Strauss, the Ba-
varian conservative leader, and for-
mer Chancellor Willy Brandt, the So-
cial Democrats' chairman, had been
expected to meet soon with Erich Ho-
necker, the East German leader.
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/01/24: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504230008-3