PRIME GUILTY; SECRETS HE GAVE SOVIETS SAID TO CAUSE 'GRAVE DAMAGE'

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP96B01172R000300030006-0
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 14, 2007
• Sequence Number: 6
• Content Type: NSPR

Approved For Release 2007/12/14
CIA RDP96B01172R0003000300060 THE WASHINGTON POST ThursdayNoainber1l1982 e4 A3
Prime Guilty; Secrets He Gave Soviets Said to Cause Grave
SPY, From Al
read. He wept softly when his wife, Rhona, who
first told police of his espionage, testified that he
is now "totally repentant and remorseful."
A 30-page confession given by Prime to police,
along with what the state called "the indispens-
able tools of a modern spy" found in his home,
formed the basis of the prosecution. The state-
ment discloses that Prime first contacted the So-
viets while stationed with the Royal Air Force in
West Berlin in 1968 because he felt "sympathy"
for the Soviet regime.
Following that approach, he was twice given
security clearance by British intelligence, although
he traveled to East Berlin for Soviet spy training
and met repeatedly with Soviet agents in Vienna
while rising through the ranks of the government's
Joint Technical Language Service. The statement
said his last contact with the Soviets was in Pots-
dam, East Germany, in 1981.
Prime's espionage was finally uncovered only
after he confessed to his wife last April when po-
lice questioned him in connection with sexual at-
tacks on three young girls. He had been identified
in a routine check of cars seen in the area. Prime
also pleaded guilty to those offenses today. The
court was shown a box of 2,287 index cards Prime
kept on the contacts he made, mainly by tele-
phone, with potential sex victims.
The failure to detect Prime's spying, despite his
behavior and movements over so long a period,
has aroused expressions of angry dismay from
British politicians about security procedures in
intelligence agencies. Prime Minister Margaret
Thatcher will make a full statement on the case to,
Parliament on Thursday, expected to focus on the
security question.
The prosecution today specifically denied
American press reports that Prime had identified
the location of nuclear warheads or endangered
the lives of Western agents. The Washington Post,
quoting intelligence sources, reported on Oct. 25
that he had done so. In its Thursday editions, The
Guardian reports that officials at Cheltenham
"need to know the day-by-day location of all
NATO forces" and the identity of intelligence
agents in the Soviet Bloc in order to issue instruc-
tions in times of crisis. The newspaper does not
say Prime gave that information to the Soviets.
Today's session in Courtroom One at London's
Old Bailey lasted just under two hours. About 20
minutes was closed to press and public as Havers
gave Justice Lane an account of what secret ma-
terial Prime told police he had turned over to the
Soviets. The balance of the hearing consisted of
Prime's guilty pleas, a lengthy statement of facts
by Havers, testimony by Prime's wife and. remarks
by the state-appointed defense attorney, George
Carman, one of Britain's most famous lawyers.
Prime, his deeply lined face ashen, pleaded
guilty in a soft voice to 10 counts in two indict-
ments covering the sexual offenses and espionage.
The spying charges were drafted to include a pe-
riod between the end of 1967 and-last April, al-
though his "persistent communication with the
Russians" actually covered a slightly shorter time
span, according to the prosecution statement.
The statement said Prime joined the RAF in
1956, served in Africa and was transferred to Ber-
lin in 1964 after completing a Russian course. He
approached the Soviets in 1968 by handing a'note
to a Soviet officer at a West Berlin checkpoint. A
metallic cylinder was attached to his car with di-
rections to a railway station where he was met by
Russian agents-identified to him as Igor and
Valya-and he began to deliver them classified
material.
He returned to Britain that summer, was hired
by British intelligence and told to report for duty
at the end of September. Prime returned to East
Berlin where, according to the statement, he "re-
ceived extensive training in the arts of a spy," in-
cluding the writing of invisible messages, radio
transmission and deciphering of coded instruc-
tions. He was also given several hundred pounds,
the first of a number of relatively small payments
over the years. The largest sum was about $6,800.
Prime was assigned the code name "Rowlands"
and a password for meeting contacts. In response
to the agent saving, "I believe we met in Pitts-
burgh in 1968," Prime was to reply, "No, at that
time I was in Berlin.".
From then on, Prime was in regular communi-
cation with the Soviets and received supplies at
various drop points in the English countryside.
But there was no record of his having personal
contact with Soviet agents in Britain. Until 1976,
Prime I Approved For Release 2007/12/14
Language Service, which is a unit of the Govern-
ment Communications Headquarters; the main
electronic espionage agency, known by the name
of its base at Cheltenham, 80 miles from London.
He transferred to Cheltenham itself in 1976
and worked there until he resigned about 18
months later, telling his wife he was tired of the
pressure in intelligence work. It was apparently
after a promotion in 1975 that he began to gain
access to the most sensitive information. Prime
went to Vienna on several occasions to meet with
his Soviet "controller" and was told, the statement
said, that should he ever defect he would be given
a pension and the rank of colonel.
In the fall of 1977, after quitting his job, Prime
twice booked flights to Helsinki intending to de-
fect but said he decided not to go because of his
wife and her three young sons.
The Soviets next contacted him in April 1980
and directed him to a cruise ship on the Danube
where he turned over 15 rolls of film of top-secret
documents and other material taken while he
worked for the government, the statement said.
The final contact came in October 1981 when,
at Soviet request, Prime went to Potsdam and was
"closely questioned about allied activities which
were top secret." Prime said he has not heard
from the Soviets since.
In their investigation of his home, police found
a wide array of espionage equipment which was
displayed in court. Included were a battered brief-
case with a false bottom, a short-wave radio, pads
for sending coded messages and innocent-looking
letters intended as cover for invisible messages.
When confronted by police with the espionage
allegation, which he only learned later came from
his wife, Prime denied the charge. After repeated
questioning, he changed his mind and gave a con-
fession which went on for two days. In its final
words, Prime told police he began spying as a "re-
suit of a misplaced idealistic view of Soviet social-
ism ... compounded by psychological problems
within myself.... I am ... deeply ashamed."
The sentence by Justice Lane took account of
the prosecution assertion that Prime gave the So-
viets material that would cause "exceptionally
grave damage to the interests and security of this ,
country and its allies." Prime must serve at least
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Briton Prime Convicted as Spy
? By Peter Osnos
Washington Post Foreign Service
LONDON, Nov. 10-Geoffrey
Arthur Prime,; a long-time Russian-
language specialist for British intel-
ligence, pleaded guilty today to pass-
ing secrets to the Soviets that did
"exceptionally grave damage" to
Britain and its allies over 15 years.
Sentencing Prime to a total of 38
years in prison, Britain's chief jus-
tice, Lord Lane, called him a "ruth-
less, rationally motivated spy." In his
work for Britain's main electronic
intelligence agency, Prime gained
access to matters of "the very highest
secrecy," the prosecution said, and
provided the Soviets with vast quan-
tities of information.
While details of what Prime gave
the Soviets were not disclosed in
open court, the description of his
activities today appeared to confirm
estimates by American officials that
the Prime case represents one of the
most serious Soviet penetrations of
Western intelligence since World
War II. For nine years ending in
1977, Prime was deeply involved in
signals intelligence-the interception
of Soviet communications by Britain
and the United States.
Prime, a gaunt, disheveled .44-
year-old man, listened grimly as At-
torney General Sir Michael Havers
presented the evidence against him
and flinched as the sentence was
See SPY, A31, Col. I
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By Peter Osnos
Washington Post Foreign Service
LONDON, Nov. 11-Prime Minister Margaret
Thatcher said today that convicted spy Geoffrey
Arthur Prime apparently acted alone in passing
secrets to the Soviets, but any possibility that he
knew of other espionage agents in the British gov-
In a statement to Parliament, Thatcher said,
"Investigations so far have yielded no' evidence
which contradicts Prime's own statement that no
others were involved in his activities."
But, she said, now that he had pleaded guilty to
authorities would probe for answers to three major
questions: how he managed to escape detection for
so long, how much damaging information he had
given the Soviets, and whether he knew of anyone
Prime was sentenced yesterday to 35 years in
prison for espionage and a further three years on
rest for spying. First in the Royal Air Force and
then for nine years as a Russian-language special-
ist with British intelligence, Prime delivered se-
crets to the Soviets that prosecutors said did "ex-
ceptionally grave damage" to Britain and its allies.
In the first official account of what material
Prime gave the Soviets, Thatcher said he passed
"information which must have alerted them to the
state of our knowledge of certain important as-
pects of Russian defense arrangements, and to the
ways in which that knowledge was obtained." This
refers to Prime's work with Soviet communica-
tions intercepted by Britain.
Thatcher said there is no evidence that Prime
had "access to any classified information about
[British] or allied military dispositions or inten-
tions, or to any information which could have en-
dangered the lives of agents." The Washington
Post quoted American intelligence sources as say-
The prime minister's remarks were an attempt
to deal with the most serious allegations of secu-
rity lapses that remain in the aftermath of Prime's
conviction. The London Times today reported
that U.S. intelligence sources believe that as many
as "three other agents" have penetrated Govern=
ment Communications Headquarters, the British
intelligence agency where Prime worked.
Moreover, a number of members of Parliament
have called for a reexamination of the procedures
for granting security clearances in light of the fact
that the trial proceedings are complete, all these
commission on security, Thatcher said that "now
In referring the case to the government's special
being detected as a spy.
that Prime underwent four such checks without
questions must be further and exhaustively inves-
tigated." Prime, his defense lawyer said yesterday,