FBI 'INTERVIEWS' PLAY KEY ROLE IN SPY CASES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000504210014-8
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 24, 2012
• Sequence Number: 14
• Publication Date: January 5, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/01/24: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504210014-8
WASHINGTON POST
5 January 1986
FBI `Interviews' Play
Kee - Role in Spy Cases
Investigators Get Many Suspects to Talk
By Ruth Manus
W*uAAWon Nat Staff Writer
When: FBI agents interviewed
accused : spy Larry Wu-Tai Chin
shortly before his arrest Nov. 22,
the retired CIA analyst declined to
sign a written confession, explain-
ing, as 4ne agent recalled in court
last week, "That would be evidence
coming Qom the horse's mouth, and
I would be the horse."
Still, 'Chin obligingly provided
agents with an outline of his alleged
30-year. career of spying for the
Chinese=evidence that, although it
will be,.related secondhand by FBI
agents, still comes, in Chin's words,
"from the horse's mouth." A federal
judge rured Friday that the state-
ments could be used at Chin's trial
next mddth. >:
Chin was not alone in agreeing to
talk to the FBI. One of the most
NEWS
ANALYSIS
remarkable aspects of
the recent rash of spy
cases has been the
FBI's apparent, success in convinc-
ing those suspected of espionage to
confess their alleged involvement
when confronted by agents.
The vast majority of the 11 peo-
ple arrested on espionage charges
last year are alleged to have made
incriminating statements to federal
investigators. In many of. those
cases, the admissions constituted
the heart of the pr6seicutidn's. case
against the individual.
The interrogation. of a. suspect
or initerview, as the FBI prefers to
term it-is particularly important
in espionage cases because of the
murky cbAracter of the crime.
By its very nature, espionage is
designed to have few witnesses and
involves foreign agents who are
generally beyond the reach of U.S.
law enforcement authorities. In ad-
dition, many of the cases involve
alleged acts of espionage stretching
back as much as 30 years, making it
difficult for investigators to gather
enough details for a conviction with-
out evidence from the suspects
themselves.
All of this makes the agents'
chance to question the suspect an
especially critical step in any espi-
onage investigation. FBI agents as-
signed to counterintelligence work
receive special training in inter-
viewing spy suspects. Far from
crowing about their recent coups in
such interviews, however, law en-
forcement officials are squeamish
about discussing their techniques
for fear of alerting those yet to be
caught to their methods.
But court documents and testi-
mony in an array of the spy cases of
the last year have offered a rare
glimpse into how the FBI goes
about that delicate task, in which
the difficulties inherent in obtaining
a confession are further complicat-
ed by the need to make certain-at
the risk of losing the chance to use
the evidence in court-that the sus-
pect's constitutional rights have not
been violated.
In the Chin case, for example, the
three agents who questioned the
former Central Intelligence Agency
analyst repeatedly told him he was
fcee.to ask them to leave or to call a
lawyer, according to testimony last
week. WheftChin asked at one point
what a lawyer would tell him, one of
the agents candidly advised Chin
that a lawyer would warn him not to
talk.
This information about Chin's
rights, however, was sandwiched
between statements that, should he
choose to assert those rights, he
would lose his only chance to coop-
erate. Agent Mark R. Johnson tes-
tified in Alexandria federal court
Friday that he told Chin, "You don't
have to talk to us if you don't want
to. Anything you say is voluntary."
At that point, Johnson added, "An-
other agent entered the conversa-
tion and said, 'Mr. Chin, this is your
only opportunity to talk to us.' "
In addition to the agents' presen-
tation of the interview as a one-
time-only offer, they suggested to
Chin-while being careful not to
make any promises-that he might
receive more lenient treatment and
less publicity if he were to cooper-
ate.
When Chin asked the agents why
he should talk, Johnson testified,
they presented two examples, one
of an individual who had cooper-
ated, and one who had not, and
asked, "Now if you were the De-
partment of justice, which one
would you have more sympathy for,
the individual who slammed the
door in the agent's face or the one
who said what had happened and
said he was sorry?"
In fact, as defense lawyer Jacob
A. Stein pointed out in cross-exam-
ining a,econd FBI agent, "Nobody
said. to the Department of Justice,
'He has availed himself of his last
opportunity and we are wondering
. whether you would be lenient
with him.'
Indeed Stein noted, even as the
agents were telling Chin that this
was his, only chance to explain his
actions before they took the case to
the Justice Department, depart-
ment lawyers were standing by to
learn the results of the interview
and authorized Chin's arrest later
that night.
FBI agents have used these and
other techniques in other espionage
cases. Jerry Alfred Whitworth, who
is to stand trial in San Francisco
next month on charges of spying for
the Soviets with John Anthony
Walker Jr., complained that agents
subjected him to "psychological
warfare" when they questioned him
I/
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 Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/01/24: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504210014-8
The government's
bdfiw average in
being allowed to use
statements made by
alleged spies has
been extremely high.
and searched his home last May,
houX"s after Walker's arrest.
W$Rfrorth said agents told him,
"You can tell us what you know, get
it 04 your chest," and they sug-
geskedtbat if he did not, they would
obtain a search warrant, take Whit-
worth. to jail, and keep his wife,
Brenda Reis, away from their home.
I left desperate," Whitworth tes-
tified last month. When agents
asbed bkn to sign forms permitting
theft to search his home and waiv-
ing his rights to remain silent and to
consult a lawyer, "I just sort of felt
that this'would give me some relief,
if I signed this thing."
U.S. District Court Judge John P.
Vukasin later rejected Whitworth's
bid to keep prosecutors from using
his statements at his trial.
John Walker's brother, convicted
spy Arthur James Walker, whose
admissions to the FBI constituted
the centerpiece of the govern-
ment's- case against him, testified
that an FBI agent had told him that
"if the FBI could tell the justice De-
partment that I was cooperative,
that it would help me."
FBI agents denied making any
such promises, U.S. District Court
Judge J. Calvitt Clarke Jr. upheld
the use of the confession, and Ar-
thur Walker is now serving a sen-
tenceof life in prison.
"Fn; sovernment's batting aver-
ag"-being allowed to use the
sta nts made by alleged spies
hay s r i extremely high. One rel-
atively-minor loss came in the case
against John Walker, who pleaded
guilty to espionage Oct. 28. After
his arrest May 20, John Walker told
agents he did not want to answer
any questions without an attorney
present, meaning agents had to
stop interrogating him.
While, Walker was being held at
the FBI;s Baltimore office, howev-
er, agents showed him a copy of a
"Dear Friend" letter Walker had left
in a bag of classified documents for
his Soviet contacts-letting Walker
know for the first time that the FBI
had located the bag.
U.S. District Court Judge Alex-
ander Harvey II ruled that showing
Walker the letter was the "function-
al equivalent of interrogation" and
refused to let prosecutors use a
statement that `,Walker made to
agents an hour later.
a
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/01/24: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504210014-8