'GIGOLO' SPIES ABOUND, FORMER CIA AIDE SAYS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000201210002-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 17, 2012
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: September 24, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/17: CIA-RDP90-00965R000201210002-7
^= WASHINGTON TIMES
It 24 Sentember 1985
W
`Gigolo' spies abound, former
By Barnard L. Collier
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
A brilliantly wicked espionage
drama is unfolding in Germany that
might aptly be titled, "The Gigolo
Spies:'
It has played in semi-secret for
years, known mostly to an admiring
and frustrated handful of counter-
spies. With the recent defections to
East Germany of at least four female
private secretaries to high-level
West German government officials,
some of the the action is out in the
open. It is full of crafty plots and
subplots, high and low comedy,
betrayal, duplicity and death.
George Carver, S5, a retired Cen-
tral Intelligence Agency officer who
served as station chief in Bonn and
as a deputy to several CIA directors,
in a recent interview told of an early .
and darkly famous episode that sets
the present-day scene:
"She was a lonely woman who
worked for the West German foreign
office on assignment in Paris in the
mid-1970s. At a seemingly innocent
garden party hosted by the West
German Embassy, she was intro-
duced by friends to an attractive
German man. He had no ride. They
shared a car. The chemistry was
right.
"For weeks he wined and dined
her. Eventually he proposed.
"They were married by a priest at
his romantic Schloss in Austria. His
parents attended.
"Later, after she committed sui-
cide with sleeping pills, it became
known that the castle was actually
owned by a man connected with the
Hauptverwaltungaufklaerung, the
East German, intelligence service,
known as the HVA. The priest was no
priest; he was a dressed-up HVA
agent. The parents were both agents.
And so was the bogus husband, who
by the time of her death had deeply
involved her in spying for his mas-
ters:'
New versions of that cautionary
tale of the spy as gigolo are coming
to light daily in the news. Herta-
Astrid Willner, 45, and her husband,
Herbert, 59, disappeared during a
vacation in Spain last month and,
turned up as turncoats in East Ber-
lin.
Among espionage buffs in Ger-
many it is assumed that Mrs.
Willner, a secretary in the office of
West German Chancellor Helmut
Kohl, had been spying for the HVA
since not long after she met Herbert,
who quite possibly encountered and
married her on orders from the
HVA.
It also is assumed by intelligence
community officials that yet another
hard look will be taken at the
trustworthiness of middle-age
females, both married and single, in
the employ of West Germany -
since they are particular targets of
the HVA's scenario of sexual
intrigue.
Mr. Carver explained that the
script for infiltration of the West
German government by gigolo-
controlled female "assets" was
writl0 years ago by a little-
publicized East German spy master
named Markus Wolf, who has been
in charge of the Ministerium fuer
Staatssicherheit (MfS), the main
East German security agency, for
more than 30 years. The agency is
integrated. with the KGB, the Soviet
intelligence service, and performs
major subcontracting for the Soviets
in Marxist and pro-Marxist Third
World nations.
The HVA falls under the MfS.
Markus Wolf, now 62, holds the
military rank of general.
What is not widely known about
Gen. Wolf would fill an espionage
encyclopedia. But some biography is
available. As Mr. Carver briefly
recounted it, Gen. Wolf's father was
a playwright in the post-World War I
days in Germany. He took his family
to the Soviet Union about the time
Adolf Hitler made it clear to Jews
that Germany was no longer a
healthy place to live. Gen. Wolf, his
father and brother returned on the
baggage trains when Soviet troops
entered Germany and the Third
Reich was crumbing.
Gen. Wolf got.a job in the
fledgling foreign service. He
worked in the Economic Research
Bureau, which was the embryo of
the East German intelligence ser-
vices.
Mr. Carver pointed out a signifi-
cant difference between the CIA and
the HVA:
"In those nearly 40 years, [the
East German security agencyl has
had one director. The CIA has had 12.
He [Gen. Wolf] can plan for the long
term. He can do things that have no
immediate payoff. He doesn't have to
aide says
come up with something by the next
election. "
Mr. Carver said that Gen. Wolf
early took advantage of a melan-
choly result of World War II: There
are.many more woman in their late
40s and SOs in Germany than there
are men of that age and older. Both
the Eastern and Western fronts deci-
mated the ranks of German soldiers,
leaving a large population of women
without men of suitable ages for
companionship.
"So," Mr. Carver related, "Wolf
floods West Germany with assets.
His minions are everywhere, and
they operate like the lecherous
young man who propositions every
girl he meets. He may not get what
he wants every time, but he has some
interesting afternoons and evenings
along the way."
The liaisons, often enough, are
with women who have achieved sen-
sitive jobs with the government,
military or industry.
The spy agency also has set up a
meticulous, computerized, highly
sophisticated system to monitor
office gossip - seemingly trivial
stuff, sexual banter, money worries,
promotions and demotions. These
reports become the basis for a lucra-
tive spy operation.
"Let's say," said Mr. Carver, "that
there is a woman in a sensitive min-
istry who loses a boyfriend, or her
husband is killed or she has a spat.
"The odds are very high that
within a very short span she will
meet someone - a male, if that is
her preference - who is very
charming, who happens to share her
preferences, who plays chess if she
loves chess, or enjoys art or music.
One thing, as it often does, leads to
another.
"Her new boyfriend asks her for
a few small favors. She performs
them. He asks for a few more. She is
in love. Soon, she is snared, and she
can't get out."
Mr. Carver is convinced that Gen.
Wolf has developed a never-ending,
two-part problem for West German
counterintelligence.
One is the recruitment of women
already living in West Germany
through contacts, lovers, boyfriends
and the like. They must be trained,
he said, "to be skeptical and suspi-
cious of anybody. It is not easy, but
in certain jobs, you must do it."
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/17: CIA-RDP90-00965R000201210002-7
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/17: CIA-RDP90-00965R000201210002-7
The other is the Wolf-created
problem of "illegals" - those
women with secretarial skills who
are dispatched from East Germany
and get into West Germany under
the Israeli-like "Law of Return:'
which treats Germans from both
sides of the wall as West German
citizens, if they pledge to be.
With the advantage of long
stretches of time with which to
work, Gen. Wolf sends in platoons of
female spies with false names and
documents who, Mr. Carver -said,
"lay doggo" for years before they
worm their way carefully into gov-
ernment jobs - some of which ulti-
mately lead to the most top-secret
government offices.
Of course, the inevitable defec-
tions of superspies stir up Gen.
Wolf's masterfully constructed pro-
ductions, and his "assets" must
scurry for protection, as they are
doing now.
Yet the fact remains, Mr. Carver
observed, "That there are an awful
lot more lonely females in Bonn than
there are lonely males."
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/17: CIA-RDP90-00965R000201210002-7