DISAPPEARANCES FROM BONN FUEL SPY-CASE FEARS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000504230011-9
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 24, 2012
• Sequence Number: 11
• Publication Date: August 23, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/01/24: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504230011-9
A"" .I.F APPEAR
ON PAGE- -"q
Disappearances
From Bonn Fuel
Spy-Case Fears
6
By JAMES M. MARKHAM
sped w to no New Yet Tim.
BONN, Aug. 22 - A major spy scan-
dal has begun unfolding in West Ger-
many.
It 12ESIW to spread today when a
senior official of West Germany's coun-
terintelligence agency 'was rted
missing. He was the third Government
emDloree to disaooear in the lastthras
wanks. In addition, a Sean for L
lobbying sroun who was a close iriffid
of one of the Government workers has
also disappeared.
Officials said that Heinz Tiegde, who
headed the agency's counterespionage
effort aimed at East Germany, had not
appeared at work since calling in sick
on Monday.
Cases Not Officially Lidded
The Cologne-based agency, which is
formally known as the Federal Office
for the Defense of the Constitution, de.
clined in a statement to connect Mr.
Tlegde's disappearance to that of the
other three, who are believed to have
been East German spies.
But Government sources acknowl-
edged privately that West Germany
might be facing the gravest espionage
scandal since 1974, when Chancellor
Willy Brandt was forced to resign after
a top aide, Gunter Guillaume, was un-
covered as an East German agent.
The agency's statement said that Mr.
Tiegde, a diabetic, was in "unsteady
health." Others described the agent,
who was said to have been involved in
unmasking Mr. Guillaume, as de-
pressed since the recent death of his
wife.
On Monday, the statement added,
colleagues tried to reach Mr. Tiegde on
a business matter, but did not find him
at home. Members of his family also
did not know his whereabouts, it added.
The slowly unfolding scandal began
NEW YORK TIMES
23 August 1985
with the disappearance of Sonja Lune. ,And this shows - there's no reason
burg, a longstanding private secretary , to beat around the bush - that amur-
ice Minister and chairman of the Free
Democratic Party, the junior coalition
partner in Bonn
The 006year.old woman was said to
have been on a vacation in Belgium and i
the Netherlands, and Mr. Bangemann
initially thought she might have suf-
fered an accident. But Investigations
revealed that Miss L wlw had
become a close friend oft Bangs.
mom family during her 12 yea with
'the politican, had two decades ce
aurned the identity of another G ma?n~
woman who had once lived in France.
Last Friday, Ursula Richter, a 53-
year-old bookkeeper for the Associa_
tion of Expeuaes, an organization close
to the governing Christian Democratic
similarly vanished. She, too.,
wrevealed to have come to west
Germany from abroad some 20 years
ago, a after switching identi-
pparently ties with a woman who had defected to
East Germany.
Investiga say they believe that
both women are now in East Germany.
Miss Richter, who is suspected of being
the controller of a ring of spies, was
said to have been episodically shad-
owed by West German agents before
she disappeared.
The BonDbased lobbying orgsnisa.
tian where she was employed is com-
posed of former refugees from eastern
Germany and territories lost in World
War II, and it is y denounced
as "revanchist" by~
other Communist-ruled East European
countries.
The suspicion that Miss Richter was
a central figure in the spy network was
strengthened with the revelation that a
close friend, Lorenz Betzing, a 33-year.
old employee of the administration of-
fice of the West German Army, had
also vanished.
Involvement is Secret Work
The man had previously worked for a
company that installed air-condition.
ing and ventilation ducts at a top-secret
bunker in the Eifel hills out-
side Bonn that is supposed to serve as a
command center in wartime. In his la-
test job, he may have had access to the
personnel files of senior officers of the
West German armed forces.
In a television interview this
evening, Chancellor Helmut Kohl to-
day promised more stringent security
cc6beecclkicss and warned ned that t East Germa-
ny's espionage effort had strained rela-
tions between the two ermanys.
"When spying and elaare going on in our ministries, political parties, in business organize-
dons and unions, indeed, everywhere
where relatively important decisions
are made, this inevitably creates mis.
trust," he declared, interviewed at an
Auspian vacation center, St. Giigen.
antes of good neighborly relations and
reality are often far apart," he contin.
ued. "We really have to look at the dif-
ference between propaganda and the
real situation."
IAng-Term Effort
Mr. Kohl defended his Government
by noting the patient investment of
time and resources the East Germans
had made. "If someone plans 30 years
ahead, provides agents with a com-
pletely new identity, infiltrates them
Into the Federal Republic through for
sip countries and builds up his net-
work, he has naturally got good
chance. of putting his people into
place," he said.
The evide4t East German infiltration
technique exploited the fact that West
Germans arriving from abroad do not
have to present legal proof of their last j
residence - in contrast to the system-
atic police registration of West Ger-'i
mans who move within the country.
West German counterintelligence
irking promised to be an enor-
mous task in a nation addicted to world
travel, and one that gets a steady flow
of immgrants from East Germany.
Some 40,000 legally left East Germany
last year.
Bonn politicians were disinclined to
play down the access that secretaries
have to state secrets. "A secretary
knows a lot, even if she is just sitting
next to someone," commented Ger-
hard Jahn, a Social Democratic legis-
lator and former Justice Minister.
I 'One has to be fair - this could happen
to any one of us."
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/01/24: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504230011-9