SOUTH AFRICA, SOVIET UNION SWAP SPIES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000303090044-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 26, 2010
• Sequence Number: 44
• Publication Date: May 12, 1982
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/26: CIA-RDP90-00552R000303090044-0
011 PAGE
_-- ,
THE WASHINGTON POST
12 May 1982
South Afric'
..9
jet Union
% I ~-- S.?9
Sw-an.. p,ies -1
CAPE OWN, South-A_ frica, May,
d 2'(AP)uth Africa has ex
11 . ed a Soviet spy j g s for eight high
,ranking Western intelligence agents:
fand'a Sou!h`African soldier, .Prime
tvlinister Peter Botha. told Parlia-
ment on Tuesday.
,
B
ot~as his country's National
,Intelligence rvice ; deserved .the:
*gratittude. of estern nations for ay
rangin the xchange, ? which
called proof o Pretoria's .good will"
toward e Western.- :.countries. The.
}South African Broadcasting Corp
quoted the prin minister as saying.:
;the service negotiated directly with:
:''the Soviet KGB secret police.
South Africa was involved ' in a:
:'major deal in 1969, when 11 West-
erners held in the Soviet Union for
severaa. ydsrs were-released in ex-
.1cfiga for-a senioi+-member of the
,
KGB,-Yuri Loginoi - who had been.
detained by securitytl olice in 1967
and held! for about 40,
years.
[Informed sources in Washington
..said today's swap mayhhave been an
outgrowth of negotiations that led to.
an exchange between East and West
(Germany last fall in which master
espy Guenther Guillaume was re-
'turned to the East for the release of
about 30 political prisoners and for
permission-to emigrate to the West
'for 3,Q00 East Germans. ti
1 AV the time, it. was widely re-
,ported that the Soviet 'agent freed
"'today(would be released,but a snag,
yapparitT -developed' in -those nego=
*tiatio ). ,.,.:.
Both - said today's -.s.wap . took-.
*place in Europe, but he .refused to
s say where:.......
The prime minister said South I
African sapper Johan van der Nle-
." cht, held; in Marxist-ruled Angola,
.was included in the exchange for an
agent of the Soviet KGB seeret po-
lice, identified. as Maj. Alexei
Mikhailovich Koslov.
Botha'did not identify the eight.
Western iagents nor give . their na-
tionalitie~.
Botha' press release quoted with
i out comment a claim by an Israeli
I rabbi. that South Africa had offered
to free koslov in exchange for per
mission for Soviet dissident Anatoly
hcharansky to emigrate to Israel.
Kcslov.'s arrest was announced in.
Parliame.-rb on Jan. 28, 1981.. At the
time,Motha-described Koslov as. a
-senior-Soviet agent who had visited.
southern Africa on at least four oc
casions since'1976
The prime minister did not say-
how-long'Koslov had been held be-'
fore his .arrest was reported, but it
wasibelieved that he had been de
tiined'several months earlier. Botha
saidiKoslov's assignment was to as-
sess the effectiveness of the banned
African National Congress.
Tl*. bongrese, -which seeks the`
of the,
ganrzqti
' from 14
west E(tfri
neighfiori
.
rican goldi
Angola to
.4~WhPft
w. of white-minority rule,
"support from the Soviet
D'iough the guerrilla organ-
has; denied that it takes or-
rirMoscow. - <
tlet Mescht -an explosives
;Ys captured by guerrillas
itthwest Africa People's Or,
to dislodge South Africa
operates from bases in
Angola; and South Af-
have often crossed into
a the group's bases. ..'
tha announced Koslov's
captu e,.he
been ipers
had provid
id the KGB agent had
ded to cooperate and
`able infofriiat
"three volumes.of valu
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/26: CIA-RDP90-00552R000303090044-0
)