EAVESDROPPING SYSTEM BETRAYED

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000807570007-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 21, 2012
• Sequence Number: 7
• Publication Date: May 21, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/11/21: CIA-RDP90-00965R000807570007-1
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WASHINGTON POST
21 May 1986
SYst
em Betrayed
Eavesdropping High-Technology Device Disclosed by Pelton Was Lost to Soviets
By Bob Woodward the identity and description of the Benjamin C. Bradlee, executive
and
and Patrick E. Tyler Program Pelton allegedly be- editor of The Post, said yesterday
Pat Post staff writers eyed-out of the proceedings. In that he continued to believe that
Ronald W. Pelton, a former a fur tier effort to protect that m- the Paper's original story would
senior administration have revealed nothing that was not
$24,500-a-year National Security officials have threatened news or already known to the Soviet Union.
Agency employe whose trial on ganizations with legal prosecution if "The capability
Pelton disclosed has
charges of selling "extremely sen- they reveal details of what Pelton been mentioned several times in
sitive classified information" to the told the Soviet Union. the "
Soviet Union began with jury selec- After several Past in American newspapers,
lion this week, compromised months of eaten- B~dlee said.
of dge
a sive reporting, including numerous But. Bradlee added, costly, long-running and highly suc- interviews with present and past Post has been unable fully because
cessful U.S. operation that used so- government o y to judge
fficials, The Washing- the validity of the national security
phisticated technology to intercept ton Post recently Prepared a more Objections of senior officials, and
Soviet communications, according detailed version of this article to because of Post la
to sources familiar with the case. describe what U.S. sources said the paper has decided to ppct this
The Soviets uncovered the U.S. Reagan had told rin
the Soviets. Several article without a description of the
operation, which involved the use of gan administration officials, af-
ter technology Pelton allegedly be.
American submarines, after de- being asked to comment on that hayed.
briefing Pelton during two extended article, strenuously objected to its On Monday, Casey
publication sec asked the rus-
sessions in Vienna, the sources arguing that it would tae Department to consider pros-
pros-
said. The U.S. government sue- seriously damage national security. ecution of NBC News after it broad-
said. a meeting on May cast, on the g that quently discovered physical evi- for editors of The PosCentral ~began, a brief account of what dence
was p omisedat the ino telligence officals In-
telligence Director William j. Casey ~t the network said was the intelli-
are convinced the hi h-technolo threatened to seek prosecution of Bence operation Pelton disclosed to
g gy the newspaper b
?
. _ .t-o___?-.
y
he
r
retrieved by the Soviets and is in r-."1C1t i ine Post published the
etrieved hands, the soovie said. story. Casey indicated he would
their
Pelton, arrested and charged seek prosecution under a 1950 law,
er before used against a news
with espionage last November, sold nev
ganization
the Soviets this secret for $35,000 or ' that Prohibits disclo-
after he had declared sure of information about commu-
personal nications intelligencethe inter-
bankruptcy and resigned from his ception or encoding of secret com-
low-level NSA job, according to his menications,
indictment. After that meeting with Casey,
According to intelligence offi- The Post decided to postpone pub-
cials, Pelton's betrayal represented lication of the article, which had
one of the gravest American intel- been scheduled for the editions of
ligence losses to the Soviet Union. Sunday, May 4.
Beyond the operation itself, Pel- On Saturday, May 10, at Casey's
ton's action confirmed one of the request, President Reagan tele-
intelligence community's worst phoned Katharine Graham, chair-
fears-that vital high-technology man of the board of The Washing-
U.S. spy systems can too easily be ton Post Co., to urge that The Post
betrayed by one of the hundreds or not publish the article. Earlier, Vice
thousands of low-level clerks, tech- Adm. Join M. Poindexter, Reagan's
nicians, translators and others national security affairs adviser, Lt.
needed to operate them. Gen. Wiliam E. Odom, director of
When testimony begins in Pel- the National Security Agency, and
ton's trial next week, lawyers on other officials told The Post that
both sides have pledged to keep Publication of the article could en-
classified information-including danger national security.
Pelton, 44, resigned his NSA
job
in July 1979 after declaring person-
al bankruptcy. He allegedly con-
tacted the Soviet Embassy in Wash-
ington six months later, and dis-
closed the intelligence operation
during meetings with Soviet intel-
ligence officials, according to gov-
ernment affidavits in the case. One
source said Pelton had an "extraor-
dinarily sensitive low-level job"
within NSA's operations directorate
where he worked in the "Soviet
group," which consists of 800 to
1,000 employes.
The information collected by the
technology Pelton allegedly de-
scribed to the Soviets was sent to
NSA where analysts such as Pelton,
who spoke Russian and was trained
in computer operations, translated
and studied the fruits of the oper-
ation.
According to court documents
filed in his case, Pelton had been
cleared at NSA for top-secret sig-
nals-mtelbgemx programs and for
other "sensitive compartmented
information." A year before leaving
the agency, Pelton authored a high-
ly classified technical study of NSA
Programs relating to the Soviet
Union.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/11/21: CIA-RDP90-00965R000807570007-1
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/11/21: CIA-RDP90-00965R000807570007-1
An FBI agent's affidavit prepec+ed
lSar the preliminary hearing in Pei-
tan's case stated that "on several
occasions from January 1980
through January 1983, Pelton met
with Anatoly Slavnov, an intelli-
gence officer of the KGB, and, in
exchange for payments [described
in other government documents as
$35,000 in cash], provided to the
Soviet agent extremely sensitive
classified information related to
United States intelligence activities
directed at the Soviet Union."
Nearly all the details about Pel-
ton's dealings with the Soviets re-
ported in this article come from FBI
accounts of conversations with the
alleged spy. Pelton has acknowl-
edged that he has made damaging
adnniseions to FBI agents and has
not challenged the substance of the
FBI accounts of those conversa-
bow. Pelton contends that he was
tricked into making the statements
by FBI agents who led him to be-
lieve they wanted to use him in
counterintelligence work.
Pelton was indicted, in part, un-
der a section of U.S. law (18 USC
798) that applies exclusively to the
unauthorized disclosure of classified
communications intelligence and
codes. This is the same law Casey
indicated was relevant when he
threatened to recommend prose-
cution of The Post if the newspaper
published the article describing the
operation Pelton compromised.
Because of the sensitivity of the
operation, intelligence officials had
what one senior source called a
"battle" with the FBI and the Justice
Department over whether to pros-
ecute Pelton after the FBI had iden-
tified him as the man who betrayed
the secret to Moscow. Finally, Jus-
tice was allowed to proceed against
Pelton, the sources said, because
the administration is intent on a
widespread crackdown on espio-
nage.
Pelton's alleged espionage might
have gone undetected and the com-
promise of the American intelli-
gence operation might have re-
mained unexplained were it not for
the arrival in the United States last
August of Soviet defector Vitaly
Yurchenko, a colonel from the Mos-
cow headquarters of the KGB. Yur-
chenko defected to the United
States last summer and provided
details that FBI officials say led
them to Pelton. Yurchenko abruptly
decided to return to the Soviet
Union in early November last year
after three months of debriefing by
the CIA. Pelton was arrested days
later, on Nov. 24, in an Annapolis
hotel.
Yurchenko had been posted at
the Soviet Embassy in Washington
between 1975 and 1980, where he
served as chief security officer. He
participated in one of the Soviets'
first contacts with Pelton, accord-
ing to the FBI.
Under the authority of national
security wiretap statutes, the FBI
eavesdropped on two telephone
conversations between Pelton and
Soviet Embassy officials. Pelton's
voice was identified by FBI voice
analysis tests and by the testimony
of "several individuals," according
to court records.
One of these conversations took
place between Pelton and Yur-
chenko, who was still at the Soviet
Embassy in Washington in early
1980, working as the KGB's chief
of embassy security. Last fall, after
Yurchenko defected, he was given a
polygraph examination in an at-
tempt to verify the information he
apparently provided about his tele-
phone conversation with someone
who had called the embassy.
Sources said Yurchenko did not
know Pelton's name but FBI offi-
cials have said publicly that Yur-
chenko provided important leads
that aided in the identification of
Pelton as an alleged Soviet espio-
nage agent.
According to affidavits filed by
FBI counterintelligence agents, Pel-
ton made his first contact with the
Soviet Embassy on Jan. 14, 1980,
about six months after he had re-
signed from the NSA.
On Jan. 15, 1980, Pelton visited
the Soviet Embassy in Washington,
the court documents allege. "On
that occasion," according to one FBI
affidavit, Pelton "agreed to provide
sensitive information relating to
United States intelligence activities
in exchange for cash payments ...
[and] he provided specific informa-
tion" the same day "relating to a[n]
. intelligence collection project
targeted at the Soviet Union."
During this visit to the Soviet
Embassy, FBI agents described Pel-
ton as having a "nervous demean-
or." He later admitted that he had
disclosed to Soviet officials "a loca-
tion where the Soviets were losing
intelligence information to the Unit-
ed States," the agents alleged.
In the FBI affidavit, the intelli-
gence collection system Pelton
compromised during his Soviet Em-
bassy visit was not identified. But
the agents stated that. Pelton said
he "selected the project for disclo-
sure during his initial meeting with
the Soviets because it involved a
matter which they could readily un-
derstand without much technical
discussion."
Before leaving the Soviet Embas-
sy, Pelton arranged to travel to Vi-
enna later in the year to provide ad-
ditional information to Soviet intel-
ligence officials. At the conclusion
of the embassy meeting, Soviet of-
ficials tried "to secrete the visitor
out of the embassy without detec-
tion by U.S. authorities," the FBI
documents said.
During pretrial hearings on April
17 and 18, an FBI agent elaborated
on this statement. The agent tes-
tified that Pelton had grown a beard
at the time of his initial visit to the
Soviet Embassy on 16th Street
NW. After his interview with Soviet
officials, Pelton shaved off his beard
inside the embassy and donned
clothes similar to those worn by
embassy workers in order to slip
undetected out of the building
(which is carefully watched by the
FBI).
Pelton then boarded an embassy
shuttle bus with other workers who
are transported back and forth be-
tween the downtown embassy and
their living quarters on Tunlaw
Road NW. Pelton was fed and then
returned to downtown Washington
where he could return unnoticed to
the car he had parked on a street.
Pelton's first alleged espionage
trip to Vienna occurred during Oc-
tober 1980. The second was in Jan-
uary 1983 when he was allegedly
paid $15,000 for information. On
each of these trips, "[Pelton] spent
approximately three to four days in
Vienna and was housed at the apart-
ment of the Soviet ambassador to
Austria within the Soviet Embassy
compound," according to an FBI
affidavit. Pelton told the FBI that
Soviet KGB officer Anatoly Slavnov
was "one of the Soviet officials with
whom he had worked in Austria,'
according to the FBI affidavit.
Each day he was in Vienna, Pel-
ton "spent approximately eight
hours a day in debriefing sessions
... providing written answers to
written questions ... about prac-
tically every area of sensitive infor-
mation to which he had accesi
through his employment at NSA,"
the affidavit said.
bftd
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/11/21: CIA-RDP90-00965R000807570007-1
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/11/21: CIA-RDP90-00965R000807570007-1
FBI agents showed Pelton the
highly classified technical study
about NSA programs he had au-
thored in 1978 and asked him how
much information from the docu-
ment he had conveyed to the Sovi-
ets. "Pelton stated that the Soviet
agent was interested in all of the
programs outlined in that docu-
ment," according to the affidavit.
Pelton made a final trip to Vienna
in April 1985 to meet with his So-
viet contacts, but during his three-
day stay in Austria he somehow
missed connections with KGB of-
ficials. Last July, Pelton received an
overseas telephone call "relating to
his failure to meet with the Soviet
agent in April of 1985 in Vienna and
requesting that he make another
trip to Vienna in October 1985,"
according to the FBI documents.
But Pelton did not make the trip.
One source indicated that Pelton
did not go because he felt he had
told the Soviets everything he knew
and had been thoroughly debriefed.
Before Pelton was arrested Nov.
24, he told the agents that he had
acted on impulse in approaching the
Soviets. The agents said Pelton ac-
knowledged that his disclosures
were costly and harmful to the
United States, and he added, "they
got more out of me than I wanted
to give up," according to the affida-
vit.
U.S. intelligence officials have
not been able to interview Pelton
since those interrogation sessions
in November. Pelton's court-ap-
pointed attorneys have advised him
to exercise his rights to have no
further discussions with the FBI or
federal prosecutors, government
sources said.
At the pretrial hearing last
month, Pelton asserted in testimo-
ny that his statements to FBI
agents were not voluntary and that
his constitutional right against
self-incrimination had been violated.
Pelton, who grew up in Benton
Harbor, Mich., spent four years in
the Air Force in the early 1960s.
He learned Russian at the Air Force
language school in Bloomington,
Ind., and later became a cryptologic
technician, joining the NSA in 1965.
After leaving the agency in mid-
1979, he worked as a yacht sales-
man in Annapolis and later as a
computer consultant. He also tried
to set up his own international fi-
nance company.
Pelton and his wife separated last
August. They have three grown
daughters and a teen-age son.
Pelton has testified that he devel-
oped a dependency on alcohol and
Dilaudid, a heroin-like narcotic, in
1984 and 1985, when he was dating
a woman with drug and alcohol
problems.
In recent years there have been
three similar cases in which low-
level figures sold extremely sensi-
tive secrets to the Soviets. In
1977, Christopher J. Boyce, a 23-
year-old clerk in a top-secret vault
of TRW Inc., the defense contrac-
tor, was arrested for selling a So-
viet agent the plans for the Rhyolite
communications intercept satellite,
one of America's most expensive
and sensitive pieces of espionage
hardware.
Boyce's compromise was com-
pounded when the British govern-
ment discovered in 1982 that a low-
level Russian-language specialist
once employed by British intelli-
gence, Geoffrey A. Prime, had sold
the Soviets copies of messages in-
tercepted by Rhyolite satellites for
six years, giving the Soviets an ex-
tensive understanding of U.S. sat-
ellites' capabilities.
In 1977, William J. Kampiles,
then 23, was arrested for selling
the technical manual for the KH11
photoreconnaissance satellite, the
most advanced U.S. model, to the
Soviets for $3,000. Kampiles had
worked for eight months as a watch
officer at the CIA.
Staff writer Susan Schmidt and
researcher Barbara Feinman
contributed to this report.
3
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/11/21: CIA-RDP90-00965R000807570007-1