EX-CIA HEAD CALLS FOR POLYGRAPH TESTS FOR EMBASSY GUARDS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00901R000600390005-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 9
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 2, 2005
• Sequence Number: 5
• Publication Date: March 30, 1987
• Content Type: PREL

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Approved For Release 200532/2 xCAJ P91-00901ROd
EX-CIA HEAD CALLS FOR POLYGRAPH TESTS FOR EMBASSY GUARDS
WASHINGTON
Former CIA Director Stansf} T,rar_.said today there had not been enough
security checks run on Marines guarding the U.S. Embassy in MOSCOW, and
suggested the use of polygraph tests, remote-control cameras and rotation of
guards'partners to ensure embassy security.
Turner, who headed the CIA during the Carter administration, criticized
embassy security procedures in the wake of the arrests of two Marine guards on
espionage allegations.
"There were not enough checks on these two Marines in the organization of the
embassy in Moscow," Turner said on ABC-TV's "Good Morning America" program.
"For instance, they should have been rotating the partners they worked with
so the two of them ... could not, apparently, have teamed up and on a regular
basis done this kind of thing," he said.
"For Instance, they should have put more reliance on technical equipment like
remote-control video cameras in the embassy that would recorded what happened
all night and could be reviewed in the morning," Turner said.
Sources have said investigators suspect that Sgt. Clayton J. Lonetree, 25,
and Cpl. Arnold Bracy, 21, allowed Soviet agents access to sensitive areas of
the Moscow embassy after work hours. The sources also said both men became
involved sexually with Soviet women employed at the embassy, which allegedly led
to their recuritment by Soviet agents.
'"It's a very good thing that since last September and the Daniloff affair in
Moscow, we have removed all Russians from the embassy," Turner said. "These two
Marines were lured by the oldest trick in,spying, sex. But sex from Russians who
were put inside our embassy by the KGB. They were American employees, but they
were chosen by the KGB and the result was they enticed these two Marines. We've
got those Russians out; we ought to keep them out of that embassy from now
on."Turner said the Defense and State departments have resisted the use of
polygraph tests for embassy personnel. But, he said, "now that in Moscow we are
going to fill more positions that are sort of routine positions ... with
Americans rather than Russians as we have in the past, we're going to have to
do more in terms of giving them a polygraph."Lonetree's father, Spencer
Lonetree, said an the ABC show that he believed his son's "uniqueness as an
American Indian ... was the reason why they were attracted to him."The younger
Lonetree told investigators he spied for the Soviet Union because of "what the
white man did to the Indian,"according to a report published today in the New
York Times.
Lonetree gave that and conflicting explanations for his alleged actions at
the embassy in three interviews late last year with military investigators, said
the Times, quoting declassified memos.
The newspaper obtained the memos from Lonetree's attorney, William Kuntsler,
who mainained his client is innocent. Kuntsler said the bizarre nature of
Lonetree's accounts of how he became involved with a Soviet agent show they were
a "fantasy" or the result of coercion by investigators.
Cotrti-tAd
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According to Kuntsler, one investigator admitted at a preliminary proceeding
that he had urged Lonetree "to just tell us something _ tell us a lie," the
Times said.
Meanwhile, Time and Newsweek reported that the arrests of Lonetree and Bracy
have forced the State Department to cut off important communciations channels
with its diplomats there.
All 28 Marine guards at the embassy will soon be replaced, said this week's
editions of the magazines.
Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger said Saturday that the entire system of
providing security at U.S. embassies would be studied in the wake of the two
arrests.
"We're going to look at the whole thing, the way (the guards are) chosen, the
training and the way the Soviets will continually try to subvert them," he said
in a Cable News Network interview.
Weinberger termed the spying allegations "a very great loss and a very
unhappy situation."
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 aKRCLE
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P
Crawling with Bugs
The embassy spy scandal widens, affecting Marines and diplomats
Where would it end? The
Marine spy scandal that
had started with a lonely
U.S. embassy guard con-
fessing he had succumbed
to the charms of a beautiful
Soviet receptionist in Mos-
cow had escalated into what appeared to
be one of the most serious sex-for-secrets
exchanges in U.S. history. Not only had
the Marine's partner been charged with
helping him let Soviet agents prowl the
embassy's most sensitive areas but last
week a third Marine sentinel was accused
of similar offenses. A fourth Marine, sta-
tioned at the Brasilia embassy, was taken
to Quantico, Va., for grilling about espio-
nage. Several others were recalled from
Vienna. More accusations of spying were
expected to be filed this week in the still
unfolding saga.
The latest jailing, of Sergeant John
Weirick, 26, spread the contamination to
the U.S. consulate in Leningrad, where
Weirick, too, allegedly permitted KGB
agents to enter at the urging of a Soviet
woman. That prompted the State Depart-
ment to cut off all electronic communica-
tions with the consulate and order the re-
call of the six-man Marine contingent in
Leningrad, as it had earlier recalled the 28-
man detail at the Moscow embassy. Omi-
nously, Weirick's alleged collaboration
with the KGB occurred in 1982, four years
earlier than the Moscow treachery, indi-
cating a long-standing security breach.
Weirick, who was arrested at the Ma-
rine Corps Air Station in Tustin, Calif., lat-
er served at the U.S. embassy in Rome,
where other members of the Marine guard
must now be questioned. As more than 70
gumshoes from the Naval Investigative
Service set about the numbing task of lo-
cating, grilling and polygraphing every
one of the more than 200 Marines who
have served at the Moscow and East Euro-
pean embassies in the past decade, they
discovered that all but a few of the first 50
they quizzed flunked questions about frat-
ernizing with local women.
The proud U.S. Marine Corps, whose
often heroic Leathernecks had long boast-
ed of being nothing short of the best, was
confounded. "We've now got to operate
on the thesis that this is possibly an en-
demic problem in the Marines," said a se-
nior officer at the Corps's Washington
headquarters. Declared another officer:
"I'm stupefied, flabbergasted. We just
never thought something like this could
happen." So battered was the Corps that
Marine Major General Carl Mundy re-
sorted to an otherworldly defense when
grilled by a House committee. He para-
phrased the optimistic-and now iron-
ic-Marine hymn: "If you look on heav-
en's scenes, you'll find the streets are
guarded by United States Marines."
As members of Congress expressed
bipartisan outrage, President Reagan or-
dered Secretary of State George Shultz to
protest the Soviet penetration of the U.S.
embassy directly to Foreign Minister
Eduard Shevardnadze when the two be-
gin talks this week on a treaty to eliminate
intermediate-range missiles in Europe.
The President also set in motion half a
dozen seemingly redundant investigations
into embassy security.
But Reagan and Shultz would not ac-
cede to a Senate resolution calling for the
Secretary to postpone his Moscow trip un-
til security problems were resolved. Shultz
conceded that the espionage throws a
"heavy shadow" over U.S.-Soviet rela-
tions. But Reagan declared, "I just don't
think it's good for us to be run out of
town." The Administration's priority, he
told the Los Angeles World Affairs Coun-
cil, is the "pursuit of verifiable and stabi-
lizing arms reduction." The President
even repeated his invitation to Soviet
Leader Mikhail Gorbachev to come to the
U.S. for a summit: "The welcome mat is
still out."
Nevertheless Shultz, who last week
accepted ultimate chain-of-command re-
sponsibility for the embassy problems,
was in the difficult position of flying into
Moscow accompanied by a special com-
munications van to help replace the com-
promised facilities at the U.S. embassy.
Even the "Winnebago," as it became
known, may not protect him. When
checking the supposedly secure trailer in
Washington for emissions at frequencies
believed used by the sophisticated Soviet
bugs planted in the U.S. embassy, techni-
cians found, according to one, that the
Winnebago "radiated like a microwave."
Similar vans have long accompanied U.S.
Presidents abroad, raising the possibility
that their communications back to Wash-
ington may have been overheard.
The pervasive spy scandal was an em-
barrassment for an Administration that
has proclaimed its security consciousness
tests among federal employees to protect
secrets at home. Administration officials, STAT
and the State Department in particular,
displayed a curiously casual attitude to-
ward the vulnerability of its embassies to
Communist snooping.
Washington was aware of the prob-
lem: White House sources say the issue
has been raised repeatedly in recent years.
Before the Geneva summit in November
1985, the senior White House staff re-
ceived a National Security Council brief-
ing on the Soviet Union's techniques for
electronic surveillance and, for what is a
prudish culture, its blatant use of sexual
entrapment. The President's Foreign In-
telligence Advisory Board has issued at
least three reports on the subject and per-
sonally briefed Reagan last spring on the
vulnerability of the Moscow embassy. But
all these initiatives died, White House
aides contend, amid bureaucratic slug-
gishness and even outright resistance on
the part of the State Department.
Indeed, the high-tech proliferation of
miniaturized, and in some cases virtually
undetectable, eavesdropping devices
seems to have promoted a defeatist we'll-
have-to-live-with-bugs attitude. "Our se-
curity people have always looked upon
our buildings as loaded with bugs," ex-
plained a former foreign service officer,
who dismissed sexual entrapment as just
another professional hazard. Such com-
placency may have contributed to what a
high State Department official described
as this "first-class mess."
It will take months to assess the pre-
cise damage inflicted by the spying, but a
senior White House official has already
declared, "These cases taken together are
likely as significant as the worst hits of the
past." They were at least as serious, he
claimed, as the Navy's Walker-family spy
ring, the sale of secrets by the National
Security Agency's Ronald Pelton and the
defection of former CIA Employee Ed-
ward Howard. The damage could extend
far beyond matters related to the Soviets.
The Moscow embassy is on the distribution
list for a wide range of foreign policy mate-
rial, including details of U.S. negotiating
positions in the Geneva arms talks, back-
ground on Nicaragua policy, Middle East
affairs and relations between the U.S. and
its allies. The CIA has its own communica-
tions facilities in Moscow, and the agency is
assuming that these too were compromised.
As the scandal spread, U.S. diplomats
were rendered almost mute in their en-
claves in Eastern Europe, reduced to writ-
ing sensitive messages in longhand. Even
in non-Communist countries, the uncer-
tainty of who might be listening turned
U.S. envoys into near paranoids. On a trip
Continued
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in Southern Africa, Assistant Secretary of
State Chester Crocker refused to send any
reports to Washington until he could do so
personally. "It's incredible the impact of
this on all of us," said a State Department
official. In an age of wondrous globe-
spanning communications, the superpow-
er that pioneered the technology found its
creations turned against it.
The treasonous acts attributed to the
Marine guards were bad enough. But most
of Washington was also belat-
edly aroused by the long-
known and festering problem
of the new U.S. embassy com-
pound in Moscow, which was
nearing completion when work
was halted in 1985. Built from
prefabricated sections pro-
duced off the site-and out of
sight of any U.S. inspectors-
the chancery, not surprisingly,
was found riddled with embed-
ded snooping gear, Charged
Texas Republican Congress-
man Dick Armey: "It's nothing
but an eight-story microphone
plugged into the Politburo."
Reagan vowed last week
that the Soviets will not be
permitted to occupy their new
embassy on Mount Alto in Washington
until security can be assured for the U.S.
in its new Moscow quarters. He conceded
that the red-brick U.S. chancery, whose
walls are already water-stained because of
its unfinished roof, may be so bug-ridden
that it will have to be demolished. The en-
tire complex, which includes 114. occu-
pied residential units and recreational fa-
cilities, had been budgeted at $89 million.
The cost when it is finished, apart from
the electronic cleansing, is now projected
at $192 million.
Former Secretary of Defense James
Schle st' ' due to report in June on what
s oulli d be done with the porous white ele-
phant. Reagan has appointed a commis-
sion headed by Melvin Laird, another for-
mer Defense Secretary, to suggest ways out
of both the new embassy dilemma and the
penetration of the current chancery. The
high-powered panel will include former
CIA Director Richard Helms and former
Joint Chiefs Chairman General John Ves-
sey. Four other groups, including the Z"
eign Intelligence Board, are investigating
aspects of e scandal. Former CIA Official
Bobby l m last week offered a novel so-
utiol n for the bugged building: Americans
should "very carefully" construct three se-
cure floors on top of it.
On Capitol Hill, Republican Senators
Robert Dole and William Roth introduced
a tough package of anti-espionage mea-
sures that would require the President to
negotiate a new site for the U.S. embassy in
Moscow by Oct. 31. If the Soviets did not
provide such a site, including security guar-
antees, they would be required to vacate
their entire new Mount Alto compound in
Washington.
As Republicans took the lead in berat-
ing the Administration for the security fi-
asco, Indiana's Senator Richard Lugar re-
leased a report compiled by the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee last year
while he was chairman. It charged the
State Department with "poor management
and coordination" in protecting embassies
against Soviet penetration. Lugar called on
the White House to suspend the construc-
tion of new embassies in Bulgaria. Czecho-
slovakia, East Germany, Hungary and
China until the embassy security investiga-
tions are completed.
Congressional anger was dramatized
by a showboating but nonetheless reveal-
ing jaunt to Moscow by Democratic Con-
gressman Dan Mica of Florida, chairman
of the House Subcommittee on Interna-
tional Operations, and its ranking Republi-
can, Maine's Olympia Snowe. Accompa-
nied by a TV crew and four aides, they
barged into the old embassy around mid-
night and approached the Marine guard in
his glass cubicle. "May I see some ID,
please?" the sentry asked politely. He ex-
amined passports, logged names, made a
phone call, then issued visitors' ID cards.
"Is this the place where Lonetree worked?"
Snowe asked an embassy official. She re-
ferred to Sergeant Clayton Lonetree, the
first Marine to be arrested. The official hes-
itated, then offered a shrewd answer. "Er,
in principle, yes."
After a two-hour tour of the build-
ing and two days of interviewing,
the legislators proclaimed the em-
bassy not only "grossly inadequate
for security purposes" but a "firetrap."
Back in the U.S., Mica was blunter. "It's an
absolute security disaster," he told TIME.
Ever since Lonetree was arrested, he said,
embassy personnel have been
communicating secret infor-
mation in writing, often on
children's erasable slates. Even
then they shield their messages
from suspected hidden cam-
eras. Any notes on paper are
promptly shredded.
The embassy's security
"bubble" and its massive vault
have been declared off limits to
U.S. officials for classified con-
versations since these areas
were broken into by Soviet
agents. Two new secure rooms
have been hastily erected for
Shultz's use, one of them de-
scribed by Mica as similar to a
"walk-in cooler, 8 ft. by 10 ft.,
each with a folding table and a
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 Dplea
dozen chairs." Surprrssi~igiy, wuuep Writs' tor
these new rooms had been posted openly
on an embassy wall. Mica estimated the
cost of clearing bugs and replacing com-
promised gear at more than $25 million.
After talking to a third of the 28 Ma-
rine guards, whose replacements have been
held up by Soviet delays in issuing new vi-
sas, Snowe found them "depressed, humili-
ated, surprised, angry." Many, she said, re-
alize that there had been a "total
breakdown in discipline." Security was lax
and "everybody at the embassy knew it,"
charged Snowe. If true, part of the blame
had to fall on Arthur Hartman, the Am-
bassador who left the post in February.
While admitting some of their own
failures, the guards claimed they were be-
ing used as scapegoats for the lackadaisical
attitude toward security shown by diplo-
matic personnel. Snowe said the Marines
had reported finding 137 violations last
year, including open safes and classified
papers left exposed. Conceded a Washing-
ton source: "One unfortunate result of this
mess will be further alienation of the Ma-
rines and the State Department types."
Some guards insisted that the embassy
civilians were also guilty of fraternizing
with Soviets. The rules against fraterniza-
tion in Soviet bloc nations require all em-
bassy employees, from the Ambassador to
the Marine guards, to report any "contact"
with a national of the host country in an
"uncontrolled" situation. The rule break-
ing allegedly made it easy for Violetta
Seina, a former receptionist at the U.S.
Ambassador's residence, to seduce Lone-
tree into letting the KGB enter the embassy.
He claimed to have met her on a Moscow
subway, although she attended the annual
Marine ball at the embassy. Galina (her
last name was not revealed), the cheerful
Soviet cook at Marine House, had easy ac-
cess to Corporal Arnold Bracy, the guard
she allegedly befriended. Amid widespread
rules violations, so far only Staff Sergeant
Robert Stufflebeam, 24, has been charged
solely with fraternization.
I
r
Facing charges: Lonetree and Bracy, top
Stufflebeam and Weirick
According to Navy investigators, Lone-
tree's pride in his love affair with Seina led
indirectly to his arrest. In this account, he
and an unidentified corporal visited Stock-
holm together last year and went on a
drinking binge in the Marine quarters at
the U.S. embassy there. The booze loos-
ened Lonetree enough for him not only to
describe his passion for Seina but also to re-
veal hints of a KGB connection. Later,
when the two drinking buddies met in Vi-
enna, where Lonetree was posted after
Moscow, they enjoyed another blast. This
time Lonetree allegedly mentioned Bracy's
involvement as well.
Weirick also was alleged to have been
led to the KGB by several women he en-
countered while stationed at the Leningrad
consulate. He left Leningrad in 1982 and
was transferred to Rome, where investiga-
tors contend that he bragged to a colleague
of having earned some $350,000 from the
Soviets.
ROOQ600390005-8
amily members and associates of the
accused embassy guards insist that military
investigators have vastly exaggerated the
espionage charges. "They are convinced
they've got a major Russian spy on their
hands," said one kinsman. "What they've
got is a horny Marine." In Santa Ana,
Calif., Lawyer Michael Sheldon, who had
earlier represented Weirick on a drunk-
driving charge, said the accused spy "cer-
tainly didn't seem to be a man of great
means. He paid his fees on the slow-fee
plan. Sometimes he missed a payment."
In New York City, Bracy's parents
claimed their son had reported improper
advances by the Soviet cook Galina. "He
turned that woman over to his superiors
three times, but nothing happened." said
Theodore Bracy. "They're throwing my
son to the dogs." Bracy's mother Frieda
agreed, claiming, "They're making him a
scapegoat."
William Kunstler, the radical New
York lawyer who has defended Native
American activists, has volunteered to rep-
resent Lonetree, whose mother is a Navajo
and father a Winnebago. Kunstler claims
Bracy was offered immunity in the Navy's
attempt to build its case against Lonetree
but that Bracy had refused to accept it.
Navy investigators concede that their cases
have been built largely with lie detectors
and must be strengthened. Kunstler goes
further: "The case is a consummate hype
and fraud," he charged. "They're trying to
make Clayton and, I suspect, Bracy too
scapegoats for their lax supervision." He
said he wants the case taken away from the
military and handled in federal courts,
where, unlike a court-martial, there is no
death penalty for peacetime espionage.
"They want to hang Clayton," Kunstler
declared. "There's no question about it."
The Soviets denounced the espionage
allegations as "unfounded, clearly far-
fetched allegations." Displaying their new
fondness for press-agentry, Soviets in Mos-
cow responded with a press conference at
which snooping gadgets, including micro-
OLD E MBASSY
SECURE AREA/
AMBASSADOR'S ELECTRONIC
OFFICE EQUIPMENT
..' VENICLE
CULTURAL AND MARINES'
PRESS OFFICES/ FORMER
LIBRARY QUARTERS
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 Approved For Release 2005/12/23 : CIA-RDP91-00901 R000600390005-8
phones, optical devices and
transmitters were dis-
played. All, claimed Soviet
Foreign Ministry spokes-
men, had been retrieved
from Soviet missions in
New York, Washington
and San Francisco, some-
times even from bedrooms.
Quipped Deputy Spokes-
man Boris Pyadyshev:
-The desire to know Soviet
citizens better is under-
standable-but not in the
bedroom."
At week's end the Sovi-
et diplomats in Washington
trumped their Moscow col-
leagues by offering an un-
precedented tour of the
Mount Alto facility to dis-
" I don 't know, Boswick, maybe Moscow's just getting to me ...
but have you ever wondered about this ashtray?'
play what they said were American bug-
ging devices. As some 100 reporters and
cameramen crowded into an unfinished
embassy reception room, Embassy Securi-
ty Officer Vyacheslav Borovikov clam-
bered up a scaffold and pointed to a small
cavity in the marble facing where, he said,
a microphone had been planted. Similar
hiding places were exposed in two other
rooms: outside, the Soviets produced an
embassy car with a locator device hidden
in the dashboard.
Not amused by the Soviet show, Presi-
dent Reagan first responded to questions
about the U.S. bugging with a curt com-
ment: "If you want to believe them, go
ahead." Headed for a vaca-
tion in California. he add-
ed, "I cannot and will not
comment on United States
intelligence activities."
Turning angry, Reagan in-
sisted, "What the Soviets
did to our embassy in Mos-
cow is Outrageous."
Indeed it was. Yet spy-
ing is an old and nasty
game among rival nations.
The key issue in the sad and
still developing Marine es-
pionage scandal was not
whether the Soviets had
broken some unwritten rile
what American agents had
done to them, A more rele-
vant question was just why
American Marines and State Depart-
ment officials had permitted the Soviets
to compromise U.S. security so thorough-
ly-and so easily. On that point the
many investigations were very much in
order. -By Ed Magnuson.
Reported bylames O. Jackson/Moscow andBruce
van Voorst/Washhrgto% with other btreaus
Getting "Snookered"
Contrary to popular belief, the site of the new U.S. embassy
in Moscow is not a swamp. But that is one of the few favor-
able comments the State Department can make about the con-
troversial facility. According to a department report written
last year, the swamp legend resulted from "some drainage
problems during excavation" of the site.
Still, the new chancery is 30 ft. lower
than the bid one, and evidence of eaves-
dropping devices has been found in its
walls and structural columns.
By most accounts, the project has
been jinxed from the time the U.S. and
the Soviet Union began discussing a joint
agreement to construct new embassies
24 years ago. Throughout the decades of
haggling over the plan, the U.S. consis-
tently got the short end of the deal. Says
Lawrence Eagleburger, an assistant to
the Secretary of State under Richard
Nixon: "Every Administration since
Johnson got snookered on this."
First came the squabbling over re-
ciprocal sites: The Soviets initially
balked when the U.S. offered a location.
on Washington's Mount Alto, complain-
ing it was too far from the center of town-
The U.S. had a similar gripe about the
Soviets' suggested American embassy
site high atop the Lenin Hills. By the end
of the decade, however, the Soviets had
accepted Mount Alto; the high ground
may have been far from the action, but it
did offer an ideal location for eavesdrop-
ping equipment. Meanwhile, the. U.S.
agreed to build in that soggy spot near,
the Moscow River, primarily because it
was close to the old embassy and only smile from the Kremlin,
"It's a classic case of one part of the Government not tallang to,
the other," says former CIA Deputy Director Bobby Iuman?"Isn
the intelligence community, we certai y aware oft be terk
rifle advantage of the Mount Alto location. But the State De-
partment wouldn't listen"
Then commenced the extended bargaining over construes
tion. By 1972 a compromise had taken shape. The interiorde o-
Now Mnbasuleer AmedcaR tap, and So",
,
ration and finishing of each compound
would be overseen by the country's own
teams, but the major construction would
-
be the responsibility of the host country.
The intelligence community balked at
allowing the Soviets to build the embas.
sy's walls. But President Nixon, who was
pursuing a policy of detente with Mos-
cow, instructed the State Department to
cut the deal.
Bickering continued over con-
struction details until a final protocol
was signed in 1977. Jimmy Carter's
CIA director, Stansfield Turner, want-
ed the Moscow embassy to be ount
a only by U.S. citizens who would be
subject to lie-detector tests upon their
= return home. Carter approved the
idea, says Turner, but the departments
of State and Defense blocked the plan.
"I gave them money out of the CIA
budget for security checks and poly-
graphs," says he, "and they never
properly used it." Turner believes the
U.S. has a "cultural problem' with
Soviet espionage. "Americans. just
can't get it through their heads that.'
the Soviets will do anything. to spy on
us," he contends. "Few people in
Washington are prepared to pay the
price for security."
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 ARTICLE NEW YORK TIMES
ONAp ro elease 2005/28/ r AIgpf 91-00901 R00060039000
Marines Say Two Guards Allowed
Russians to Roam U.S. Embassy
WASHINGTON, March 27 - The
Marine Corps charged today that two
Marine guards at the American Em-
bassy in Moscow allowed Soviet agents
to spend hours roaming through some
of the most sensitive sections of the
embassy on "numerous occasions"
last year.
In its most detailed public statement
about the case, in which one of the ma-
rines is charged with espionage and the
other is being held on suspicion of
spying, the Marine Corps said the two
guards worked as a team. One acted as
a lookout while the other turned oft the
alarms being activated by the Soviet
agents, who entered such areas as the
defense attache's office, the communi=
cations processing unit and "sensitive
intelligence spaces," according to the
Marine Corps.
Five Charges Added
The Marine Corps also charged that
one of the guards, Sgt. Clayton J? Loft e-
tree, had given SOv et agents blue-
prints to the American Embassies in
Moscow and Vienna, classified docu-
ments from a bag of sensitive material
supposed to be destroyed, and the iden-
tities, telephone numbers and ad-
dresses of "covert U.S. intelligence
agents,"
The dist:losure of the charges came:
as the Marine Corps filed five addi-
tional charges against Sergeant Lone-
tree, bringing the total to 24, including
espionage. They added new details to a
case that Administration officials have
termed one of the most potentially seri-
ous security breaches in a recent
period that has already had a series of
damaging spy cases. Michael V. Stuhi,
the lead defense attorney for Sergeant
Lonetree, said his client would "abso-
lutely deny these allegations."
Administration officials said they
were particularly concerned about the
reported. breach because the Moscow
embassy was used as the command
post for some of the Central Intelli-
gence Agency's most closely guarded
intelligence gathering operations.
The Marine Corps charges that Ser-
geant Lonetree collaborated with the
second marine, C1.~~Arrnolldd Bracvy.. ~n
escorting Soviet agents through the
compound in early 1986. The two men
later lied to their superiors about what
had set off alarms in the communica-
tion processing unit, which handles the
coded transmission of the embassy's
most sensitive messages, according to
By STEPHEN ENGELBERG bassy spaces." i
s ectslsoTheNewYork77mee
The charges said that the two con;
said the allegations about the Soviet spired to allow Soviet agents to enter
agents in the United States Embassy the embassy from January to March
- -
were based on detailed admissions by
Corporal Bracy. The two said he had
since recanted his confession, saying
investigators had given him an elabo-
rate false story to tell so they could
build a case against Sergeant Lonetree.
Sergeant Lonetree's family has con-
sistently denied that he engaged in es-
pionage.
A Marine Corps spokesman would
not comment on whether Corporal
Bracy had withdrawn his confession,
but Administration officials said they
were skeptical about his suggestion
that the story about Soviet agents en-
tering the embassy had been fabricat-
ed.
Soviet Agents Named
The Marine Corps said that Sergeant
Lonetree conspired with Violetta Seina,
a Soviet employee of the embassy who
Administration officials said seduced
him and recruited him as a spy. Ac-
cording to the charges, Sergeant Lone-
tree then worked with two Soviet
agents, identified in the Marine
charges as Aleksiy G. Yefimov, or
Uncle Sasha, and Yurly V. Lysov, or
George.
According to the Marine Corps, Cor-
poral Bracy, was paid $1,000 by Ser-
geant Lonetree.. It was the first official.
report that money had played a part in
the case. Administration officials have
said previously that Corporal Bracy,
like his colleague, had been seduced by
a Soviet national who worked in the
embassy.
Sergeant Lonetree and Corporal
Bracy are being held in military cus-
tody in Quantico, Va. Sergeant Lone-
tree was arrested last December and
brought back to the United States,
where he was charged with espionage
and related counts. Corporal Bracy
was arrested this week at the Marine
base in Twentynine Palms, Calif.,
where he had been transferred.
They are awaiting decisions about'
whether their commanding officer will
convene court-martial proceedings.
Espionage charges, if prosecuted in the
Federal court system, carry a maxi-
mum sentence of life in prison. Be-:
cause the cases are being handled in
the military justice system, the charge
of espionage carries a death penalty.
The charges against Sergeant Lone-
tree said he escorted "unauthorized i
personnel from the U.S.S.R." into the
embassy, "allowing them to peruse
said areas and equipment contained
therein for periods of one to four hours
at a time; during which time Sergeant
Bracy acted as a lookout, while moni-'
toring, silencing'and securing variousalarms which were set off in the em-1
charges did not specifiy whether
the two guards helped the Soviet agents
gain access to such items as the Cen,
tral Intelligence Agency's files, or key
cards, used to encode and decode com-
munications.
In the espionage case involving John
A. Walker Jr., the former Navy war-
rant officer, an associate, Jerry A.
Whitworth, gave Soviet agents exten-
sive access to key cards used by the
Navy. This allowed Soviet intelligence
to read hugh quantities of secret mes-
sages.
The charges against Sergeant Lone-
tree assert that the guards allowed the
Soviet agents access to "instruments,
appliances, documents, and writings"
within the embassy.
According to the charges, the com-
munications processing unit contains
"cryptographic information."
Adm. Stansfield Turner, President
Ca or entral Intelli-
gence, said the charges suggested sig-
nificant damage had been done to
American intelligence. "Anytime you
have the enemy mucking around in
your crypto, you've got a potentially
serious problem," he said.
Admiral Turner said the problem of
embassy security was of long standing.
He recalled that while he was director
of central intelligence, he recom-
mended that everyone involved in
building the new American embassy in
Moscow be given a polygraph, or lie-de-
tector, test. The Pentagon, he said,
refused to allow the Marine guards to
be subjected to the test, which is rou-
tine for C.I.A. officers.
Secretary of Defense Caspar W.
Weinberger, on the Cable News Net-
work program "Newsmaker," to be
aired Saturday, said the Administra-
tion would be re-examining all of its
procedures for security at the embas-
sy.
"We are, indeed, going to investigate
just as thoroughly as we can," he said.
"And not just these two, but the whole
system. We're going to look at -the
whole thing, the way they're chosen,
the training and the way the soviets
will continually try to subvert them,
and try to block that."
the Marine Cos proved For Release 2005/12/23 : CIA-RDP91-00901 R000600390005-8
Two people familiar with the case
 ARTICLE APP[A PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER
dN PAGE
Approved For Re leasel205i112V239$ZIA-RDP91-00901
A new
contra
culprit
Some see Congress
lax on oversight
/ By Charles Green
and R.A. Zaldivar
Inquirer Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON - When Congress
begins hearings on the Iran-contra
affair next month, the failings of the
Reagan administration will be on
display. But another aspect of the
controversy will receive scant atten-
tion: the shortcomings of Congress
itself.
While no one contends that anyone
but President Reagan and his admin-
istration are to blame for selling
arms to Iran, some question whether
Congress doesn't bear some responsi-
bility for what happened with regard
to the Nicaraguan contra rebels.
"All through this issue there hasn't
been any clear-cut congressional po-
sition, other than the fact they
wished it would go away," said a
former government official who sup-
ported the contras and asked not to
be named. "A lawyer for the defense
can accurately portray a situation of
'Will the real Congress please stand
up?'"
The criticisms boil down to these:
? Congress was inconsistent and
ambiguous in deciding how far the
U.S. government could go in aiding
the Nicaraguan rebels. Laws some-
times were so murky that even the
legislators who wrote them could not
agree on what they meant.
? Congress failed to oversee the
administration's dealings with the
contras adequately despite suspi-
cions about the activities of Lt. Col.
Oliver L. North, the National Secu-
rity Council aide who ran a.secret
supply network that funneled mil-
lions of dollars in weapons, materiel
and cash to the contras at a time
when Congress banned direct gov-
ernment assistance.
Lawmakers who subscribe to the
criticisms - and there are many
who do not say one reason con-
gressional scrutiny fell short was
that Democrats were ,leery of con-
fronting a popular president and of
being portrayed as soft on commu-
nism. .
"Congress didn't seem to care that
the law was being violated," said
Rep. Jim Leach (R., Iowa). "I think
the Democrats basically let the coun-
try down when it became clear the
President was extremely popular.
They were afraid to take him on."
Some even suggest it served the
purpose of skittish lawmakers to
look the other way when reports of
the NSC's involvement with the con-
tras began surfacing in 1985. To the
extent the NSC could keep the rebels
funded through outside sources,
Congress could avoid another
wrenching vote on contra aid, per-
haps the most contentious foreign
policy issue since the Vietnam War.
"As long as that [the secret supply!
was going on, clearly there was some
life-support system for the contras,"
said a former congressional aide in-
volved in the contra legislation who
asked not to be identified. "It filled
in the cracks a little bit so that Con-
gress would not have to vote on the
issue and take the heat on it."
?
Such criticisms, not surprisingly,
largely have been dismissed on Capi-
tol Hill. "Balderdash!" said Rep. Dan-
te B. Fascell (D., Fla.), chairman of
the House Foreign Affairs Commit-
tee. "The administration didn't get
what it wanted, so they went ahead
and did it another way."
He and others said the intent of
Congress was always clear, even if
laws were sometimes imprecise.
Moreover, they said, congressional
oversight of the contra program was
a victim of administration deception,
not a partner to it.
The question of NSC involvement
with the contras will be first on the
agenda when congressional hearings
into the Iran-contra affair begin May
5. The sessions will examine a net-
work run by North and his allies that
raised tens of millions of dollars -
some allegedly diverted from Ira-
nian payments for U.S. arms - to pay
for guns, aircraft, equipment and liv-
ing expenses for the contras.
The aid clearly violated the spirit
of the law; whether it violated the
letter of the law remains to be
proved.
For four years, that law kept
changing. In 1983, military aid to the
contras was legal; in 1984, it was
forbidden. In 1985, only humanitar-
ian aid was allowed; by 1986, it was
all right to send guns again.
Throughout, there were no penalties
for violating the statutes. "What
emerged," said the Tower Commis.
sion, "was a highly ambiguous legal
environment.
promises tailored to win the votes of
several dozen House and Senate STAT
members who held the balance of
power in a divided Congress.
"There was no particular rationale
to the various restrictions and limi-
tations on contra aid," said Jeffrey
Bergner, who was staff director of
the Senate Foreign Relations Com-
mittee when Sen. Richard G. Lugar
(R., Ind.), a contra supporter, headed
the panel. "It would be a mistake to
look for coherence or strategy. It
didn't reflect conscious planning. It
reflected legislative compromise."
?
Much of the ambiguity centered on
the various incarnations of the Bo-
land amendment, named after its
sponsor, Rep. Edward P. Boland (D.,
Mass.). Passed in 1982 after Reagan
authorized covert aid for the con-
tras, the first Boland amendment
prohibited the CIA and the Defense
Department from spending funds to-
ward "overthrowing the govern-
ment of Nicaragua or provoking a
military exchange between Nicara-
gua and Honduras."
But the covert CIA aid continued
- after Reagan said the rebels were
not seeking to topple the Nicaraguan
government but rather to prevent it
from sending arms to other Central
American revolutionaries.
"It became clear the administra.
tion was going to cynically ignore
the Boland amendment," said Leach,
a staunch opponent of contra aid.
"But Congress passed the funds to
allow the executive to ignore the
law."
Congressional discontent grew in
1983 and 1984, after reports that the
CIA helped direct the mining of Nica-
raguan harbors and authored a con-
tra-training manual that sanctioned
assassination as a tactic in guerrilla
warfare. In October 1984, a new Bo-
land amendment was passed barring
any agency of government "involved
in intelligence activities" from
spending money to support military
operations in Nicaragua
However, North stepped up his in-
volvement with the contra-supply op.
eration after the NSC received legal
advice that it was not covered by the
law. The Tower Commission said the
opinion apparently came from the
President's Intelligence Oversight
Board, an unusual source of legal
advice for the NSC, which has its
own counsel.
In any event, the ban did not re-
main firm. In 1985, under intense
pressure from Reagan, Congress
agreed to provide $37 million in "hu-
manitarian" aid to the contras.
Approved For Release 2005/12/23: CIA-RDP91-00901 ROWA&3A6ff--% ' it agreed to
 ApprovMr~aF taed&Mgo~iO?R4WA?at'? CIA 'tFh2 Pi~je9t4AAot~ gRA6 r3%0005-8
ian aid to include radios, trucks and
other gear useful in combat.
Then, in December 1985, Congress
relaxed restrictions on the CIA, al-
lowing it to offer "advice" to the
contras as long as it did not involve
individual military operations. Even
the legislators who wrote the law
couldn't agree where to draw the
line. Within days of the law's pas-
sage, House Intelligence Committee
Chairman Lee H. Hamilton (D., Ind.)
told the CIA it could not advise the
contras on logistical matters, while
Senate Intelligence Committee
Chairman David ger (R.,
Minn.) told t he CIA it could.
Finally, last year, a sharply divided
Congress agreed to provide $100 mil?
lion to the contras, including $70
million in military aid. All restric.
tions on CIA involvement were lift-
ed.
Administration officials said that
they were frustrated by the shifting
rules and acknowledged that they
wanted to stretch the limits of the
law to aid the contras. "Almost every-
one in the administration wanted to
go right up to the line," said a former
administration official involved in
the contra-aid issue, who spoke on
the condition he not be identified by
name or former position. "And ev-
erybody thought Ollie was dancing
on the line."
Adm. Stansfield Turner. CIA direc-
tor du fng the Carter administra-
tion, recalls newspaper reports in
1985 that North was aiding the con-
tras despite congressional restric-
tions and said he was upset that
Congress wasn't cracking down on
the gung-ho Marine: He said Demo-
crats told him "they just weren't
willing to take on a popular Presi-
dent."
gun didn't get far. The House Intelli-
gence Committee questioned former
national security adviser Robert C.
McFarlane about North's activities in
1985 and was assured in writing that
"at no time did I or any member of
the National Security Council staff
violate the letter or spirit of the
law." In 1986, the committee ques-
tioned North directly and was simi-
larly assured that the law was being
followed, panel members said.
"We learned from bitter experi-
ence that we were lied to," said com-
mittee member Rep. Matthew F. Mc-
Hugh (D., N.Y.).
"You could make the argument
that we didn't go far enough in push-
ing it," said Rep. David E. Bonior (D.,
Mich.), a leading opponent of contra
aid. "But this is a place that gives the
benefit of the doubt to the adminis-
tration, usually. We don't like to ad-
mit that people come before us and
just lie to us."
But even some contra sympathiz-
ers believe Congress could have
done a better job of oversight on the
contra issue by exhibiting the some
kind of investigative ardor in evi-
dence now.
"Congress Is like Dalmatian dogs
in the fire station," said the former
administration official involved in
the contra issue. "The bell goes off
and they jump on the machine
whether it's a false alarm or not.
Those guys are jumping on investiga-'
tions all the time. And 80 percent of
them, they just root around and
come up with nothing.
"Maybe the problem is that they're
trying to root out too many rabbit
holes instead of concentrating on the
serious ones. And maybe this was a
serious one."
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