TWO TALES OF DANGLED DOUBLE AGENTS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000301860001-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 8
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 21, 2012
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: September 1, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
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ON PAGE 1 September 1986
STAT
STAT
11 vs $P

TWO TALES
OF DANGLED DOUBLE
AGENTS
If 1985 was the Year of the Spy.
then 1986 has been the Year of
the Spy Trial. The Americans ar-
rested for espionage?prominent
among them Ronald Pelton. who
betrayed the National Security
Agency: the Walker clan that
spied on the Navy; Richard Miller.
who sold FBI secrets in Califor-
nia?have now been convicted of
their crimes. A chapter has been
closed, and with it closes the win-
dow of publicity through which
we saw briefly into the spy game.
The CIA. the FBI and the intel-
ligence branches of the U.S. mili-
tary must be grateful to be re-
turned to the shadows, especially
the counterintelligence. or Cl.
units of these services. CI special-
ists are charged with rooting out
the spies who work for the other
side. (Usually that's the Soviet
Union's KGB. though one recent
case involved Israeli agents.) Crit-
ics see the revelations as proof of
CI laxity; the intelligence commu-
nity, while stung, prides itself on
the arrests.
Aggressive counterintelli-
gence tends to clash with civil lib-
erties. The CIA is barred from in-
vestigating Americans at home,
though many flagrant abuses
came to light after the Vietnam
years. Domestic CI is the province
of the FBI. which can get permis-
sion to wiretap and otherwise
snoop on U.S. citizens only if they
are already suspected of spying.
There can be no random probing.
Indeed, that would scarcely be
practical considering the number
of Americans in a position to be-
come traitors. Some 110.000 have
access to top secret "code word"
information, while several mil-
lion more have security clear-
ances of one kind or another. As
for the numbers on the other side:
In the Washington, D.C., area
alone. the Soviets and their East
European allies maintain some
250 intelligence agents under dip-
lomatic or other official cover.
Their primary purpose is espio-
nage. A larger and more transient
body of Communist students.
journalists and businessmen is
likewise engaged.
The CI forces are considerably
outmanned. Their one consola-
tion is that the KGB. whether op-
crating here or abroad, is not enti-
tled to civil liberties. Its agents are
guilty until proved guilty. Surveil-
lance, burglary, dirty tricks. disin-
formation and entrapment are ev-
eryday tools brought to bear
against them. A favorite counter-
intelligence ploy of both the CIA
and FBI is the "dangle," the prof-
fering of a double agent whose
"secrets" confuse, disrupt and
distract the spies and CI experts
on the other side.
In real life, of course, spy vs.
spy operations are rarely pulled
off with the precision they enjoy
In novels. They are subject to the
same pratfalls and misunder-
standings that they set out to
cause. On the following pages
LIFE pulls back the cloak on two
CI dangles in action. One, engi-
neered by the FBI against the
Soviets, had the qualities of a
schoolboys prank. The other
case, more ominous and still very
controversial today, involved a
KGB officer who was apparently
sent to sung the Americans.
Centimied
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STAT
SIHI
MN THEY
iRICKED US
Epstein's books
rangefrom Legend, a
study of Lee Harvey
Oswald, to The
Rise and Fall of
Diamonds. His next,
Deception, will
report on the ways
governments and
intelligence
agencies fool
one another.
Vitaly Sergeyevich Yurchenko
was dead. He was secretly exe-
cuted by the KGB in Moscow.
That was what an official of a
U.S. intelligence agency told a
LIFE reporter early this year.
When the story was floated in
the press some weeks later.
Yurchenko's execution was
said to have been by firing
squad. Supposedly. his family
was even charged for the cost
of the bullets.
The 49-year-old counterin-
telligence officer with the mil-
itary swagger had come to the
U.S. last summer as a defec-
tor, but then had voluntarily
returned to the Soviet Union.
In the uproar that followed,
questions were raised, even by
the President himself, about
whether American intelli-
gence had been duped. 'fur-
chenko's alleged execution
was therefore very important
to the CIA. If he had been
killed it would tend to prove.
at least in the court of public
opinion. that he had indeed
betrayed the Soviet Union
rather than having cones here
on an authorized mission?a
dangle.
The death report was false.
Soon afterward Yurchenko re-
appeared and made himself
He was "alive and kicking," as
he explained in English. He
also said he was in the process
of writing a book about his ex-
periences with the CIA. This
dramatic resurrection was
hardly noted in the U.S. But it
gave the Year of the Spy an
entirely new and unsettling
meaning.
The story begins in mid-
1985, with the loss of one of
the most valuable agents the
CIA had ever acquired in the
Soviet Union. He was A. G. Tol-
kachev, an electronics expert
employed by an elite Soviet
think tank that researches
military aviation and space-
based detection systems. Re-
cruited for the CIA in Moscow
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in the early 1980s. Tolkachev was
unlike most of the West's other in-
telligence sources, such as diplo-
mats or attaches, whose access to
technology is limited. He was in a
position to pass on to the CIA hard
data on the extent to which Amer-
ican submarines and planes were
vulnerable to detection. For some
three years until that spring, his
microfilms of Soviet military se-
crets were left for an American
courier in "dead drops." hiding
places that make face-to-face con-
tact unnecessary.
Abruptly, the deliveries from
Tolkachev ended. When the
American courier, who had diplo-
matic immunity, went to check
the drop site, he walked into a
trap. He was seized by waiting
KGB officers and then expelled
from the Soviet Union. It was
clear to the CIA that despite all its
precautions, Tolkachev had been
compromised and captured by
the KGB. But how?
In the spy war the question of
how an agent is compromised can
be as important as the loss itself.
In this case there were only two
possibilities: Either Tolkachev,
through some slip on his part (or
his courier's), had been caught by
the KGB through routine investi-
gative work or he had been be-
trayed by someone privy to the op-
eration inside the CIA. If the
former, the entire affair could be
chalked up to a tragic accident.
But if it turned out that Tolkachev
had been compromised by a mole,
all the other CIA agents in the So-
viet sphere would be in extreme
Jeopardy.
This possibility is the night-
mare of every CIA director. The
suspicion of such a "penetration"
would not only serve to paralyze
ongoing operations, it also would
call into question the validity of
the information already received.
The nightmare seemed more
and more reality in light of other
developments: One after another.
spies for the West were coming in
from the cold claiming that they
had been compromised and were
on the verge of being arrested by
the KGB. A diplomat from the So-
viet embassy in India. whom the
CIA was secretly developing as a
mole, defected from his post in
March 1985. In May a Soviet mili-
tary intelligence officer who has
provided the CIA with valuable in-
sights about Russian efforts to in-
filtrate the Greek military, sought
protection at the American em-
bassy in Athens. He claimed that
the KGB had placed him under
surveillance. His fear was so great
that he left his wife and seven-
year-old daughter behind. Final-
ly, in England. Oleg Antonovich
Gordyevsky. a KGB officer at the
URCIIENKO
REVEALED A MYSTERY AGENT
NAMED 'ROBERT'
Soviet embassy, also found him-
self being questioned and
watched. He had been selling So-
vie secrets to British intelligence
for years. Now he hastily orga-
nized his escape, also without his
family.
While these defections could
be trumpeted from a U.S. public
relations perspective as "vic-
tories" that had been secretly won
long ago and could now be re-
vealed, they actually constituted
defeats in the ongoing spy war.
Spies are most valuable when
they are in the enemy camp and
have access to its secrets. The mo-
ment a spy defects, he negates his
value. Not only does he lose his ac-
cess. he exposes the fact that he
has stolen secrets in the past.
which often allows at least part of
the damage to be remedied.
Just as the CIA began to inves-
tigate this rapid succession of
losses, the agency received an as-
tonishing message from Moscow.
It was from Vitaly Yurchenko, of-
fering his services. Yurchenko
was no stranger to the agency. He
had been the chief security officer
and a KGB operative at the Wash-
ington embassy from 1975 to
1980. when he was reassigned to
Moscow. Before he left. the CIA
made its own approach to this
KGB dangle man?he was given
the opportunity to become a dou-
ble agent. This was the sort of
gambit that is commonly made by
the CIA on the chance that a KGB
officer at some future time will
run into difficulties that will
cause him to accept.
Now, five years later, Yur-
chenko alleged to the CIA that he
had had a meteoric rise and was a
general-designate in KGB head-
quarters at Dzerzhinsky Square.
He had been promoted to the chief
of the fifth counterintelligence dr
partment, where he was responsi-
ble for, among other things, inves-
tigating the credentials of foreign
agents recruited by the KGB.
Then he had been elevated to
deputy chief of the department re-
sponsible for organizing espio-
nage operations against the Unit-
ed States and Canada. If this self-
reported career was authentic.
Yurchenko was one of the high-
est-ranking KGB officers ever to
volunteer his services to the U.S..
and a man uniquely qualified to
answer the CIA's burning ques-
WANTED BFY TBITHE
ESPIONAGE; INTERSTATE FLIGHT ? PROSATION VIOLATION
EDWARD LEE HOWARD
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Fingered by Yurchenko, Howard gcwe the FBI the slip. Thefugittue is
said to hauefled to either Moscow or Central America,
tions about its compromised
spies. He could also explain the
other side's "wiring diagram"?
the Communist bloc apparatus
for recruiting and servicing its
agents in North America. Most im-
portant of all, he could identify
any moles that had been infiltrat-
ed into American intelligence.
Though his motive was not
clear. Yurchenko's offer to talk
could not be refused. In the initial
interrogation, which took place in
a safe house on the outskirts of
Rome, the Russian told the CIA
what it most wanted to believe: All
the attempted recruitments of
CIA personnel that came under
his purview had failed. There was
no active mole in the CIA. He
could personally attest to it. Then
he sprang a surprise. Rather than
returning to Moscow, as had been
expected, he announced that he
wanted to defect to the U.S.
On August 1. Vitaly Yur-
chenko applied for political asy-
lum at the U.S. embassy in Rome.
The next day he was bundled
aboard a military courier plane
and flown to Washington. Settled
in a safe house 60 miles from
the capital in Coventry. Va..
he at once began to undergo his
debriefings.
Yurchenko talked about a
mystery agent named "Robert."
an ex-CIA officer. He said Robert
had contacted the Soviet embassy
in Washington and had subse-
quently traveled to St. Anton.
Austria. for a meeting with the
KGB. These details immediately
focused suspicion on one ex-CIA
employee?Edward Lee Howard.
Howard had joined the agency
in 1981 at the age of 29. He was
groomed over the next two years
for an embassy job in Moscow,
but before his posting. he made
damaging admissions during a lie
detector examination about drug-
taking. In June 1983 he was fired
by the CIA. Embittered. Howard
went to the gates of the Soviet em-
bassy in Washington but decided
at the last minute against going
in?or so he later claimed. Shortly
afterward he moved to New
Mexico.
Yurchenko's tip prompted the
FBI to grill Howard extensively.
He acknowledged that he had met
with Soviet officials in Austria on
the date in question. It was clear
that he was indeed Robert.
The CIA then jumped to the
conclusion that Howard had be-
trayed Tolkachev. When Howard
left the CIA in 1983. he was hardly
more than a trainee and not privy
to such closely held "need to
know" secrets as the identities of
top agents. But it was always pos-
sible that he could have picked up
and passed on some telltale 8-?
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procedures that two years later
would have led to Tolkachev. Be-
fore this crucial question could be
resolved. however. Howard disap-
peared from his house in Sante
Fe. escaping FBI surveillance. He
evidently boarded a flight to Aus-
tin. Tex.?and vanished.
Yurchenko also furnished
leads pointing to Ronald Pelton.
an ex-employee of the National
Security Agency, who, like How-
ard. had given secrets to Soviet in-
telligence in Austria. The FBI had
tapes from 1980 of phone conver-
sations between Pelton and Soviet
officials?one was Yurchenko?at
the embassy in Washington.
Matching Pelton's "voice prints"
to the tapes completed the identi-
fication. After questioning by
the FBI, Pelton was arrested last
November.
In both cases, however. Yur-
chenko had told U.S. intelligence
only what he and the KGB as-
sumed it already knew. As his em-
bassy's security officer. Yur-
chenko certainly was aware that
Soviet telephone lines were
tapped by the FBI. and that visi-
tors like Pelton and Howard
would be photographed. In addi-
tion, the KGB could have learned
from Howard himself during its
questioning of him that he had
been suspected and had made a
limited admission to the CIA's Of-
fice of Security. And even if they
had not been compromised from
the beginning or tracked down
soon afterward by the FBI. in
1985 Pelton and Howard were
"burned-out cases"?sources of
no further value to the KGB.
In any event. Yurchenko be-
came progressively less forth-
coming after delivering these ini-
tial messages. Instead of reveal-
ing the much sought after KGB
wiring diagram of spies, he was
stonewalling questions on the
subject. Moreover, his repeated
claim that the KGB had made no
other recruits in the U.S. or Cana-
da during the five years that he
was in charge of the counterintel-
ligence unit was becoming in-
creasingly less credible. The CIA.
after all, had offered its own dan-
gles to the KGB during this period,
and the Soviets had accepted
some of them. They included
American diplomats and intelli-
gence officers under cover who
passed disinformation and tested
KGB interrogation procedures.
Since all these agents would have
been known to Yurchenko if he
had held the position he claimed.
his failure to name them, even
when led in their direction by his
case officer, raised serious ques-
tions about his authenticity.
To the CIA's frustration, the in-
terrogation was drying up. When
[CAUGHT
A RED HERRING INSTEAD
OF A MOLE
Yurchenko asked to see the wife
of a high-ranking Soviet diplomat
in Ottawa. with whom he said he
was having a romantic 1111130n.
the CIA acquiesced. They escort-
ed him to Canada for a meeting
with her. (Presumably she was
his contact for further instruc-
tions from the KGB.) The agency
even offered him a million-dollar
contract to reveal the KGB net-
work, but he could not be moved.
The more he was pressed, the
more recalcitrant he became.
The game finally drew to an
end on November 2. exactly three
months to the day after Yurchen-
ko's arrival in America. It was a
suitably cold. rainy Saturday eve-
ning. If his CIA case officers did
not actually return their charge to
the Soviet embassy, they certain-
ly facilitated his "escape." First
they took him out to buy a hat and
coat. He was permitted to make
two phone calls to his embassy,
and in one he told the officer on
duty he was coming in. Then he
was left in the hands of a lone CIA
agent, who took him to a restau-
rant a few blocks from the embas-
sy compound. The two had din-
ner, and Yurchenko got up and
walked out the door. After he was
gone. the CIA officer called nei-
ther the FBI nor the Washington
police, who could have intercept-
ed the Russian at the gates of the
compound.
The affair might have ended
then and there if Yurchenko had
quietly returned to Moscow?as
expected?on his diplomatic pass-
port. But that Monday. November
4, reporters received an invitation
from the embassy to an afternoon
news conference. The star was
none other than Yurchenko, who.
as far as was publicly known, was
still the CIA's prize defector.
Mocking the agency at every
turn. Yurchenko claimed that he
had been kidnapped in Rome,
drugged and held prisoner for the
past three months. The next day
he went to the State Department
to demonstrate that he was re-
turning to the Soviet Union with-
out coercion. He met with a psy-
chiatrist and a half dozen CIA and
State Department officials, who
agreed that he was acting volun-
tarily. As he left. he jauntily
clasped his hands over his head
In a victory sign. By Wednesday
the Soviet dangle man was on an
Aeroflot plane headed home.
Stunned, as many were, by
these developments. Senator Pat-
rick J. Leahy. the vice chairman
of the Select Committee on Intelli-
gence. concluded that Yurchenko
was a double agent whom the
KGB foisted on the CIA. President
Reagan voiced the same suspi-
cions, adding. "The information
he provided was not anything
new or sensational." "This whole
thing was very good theater." a
high-ranking National Security
/n June Ronald Pelton was convicted on two charges of espionage.
He had talked with Yurchenko on the telephone in 1980.
Council source told The New York
Times. "And, to me, theater is
something that is staged"
There were good reasons for
such a conclusion. The first is
that the Soviet Union has no his-
tory of forgiving intelligence offi-
cers who betray state secrets.
Pointedly, the acronym for its
counterespionage arm. SMERSH.
stands for its slogan, "Death to the
Spies." As a 25-year veteran of the
KGB. Yurchenko certainly knew
the fate awaiting him if he had
passed secrets to the CIA without
proper authority.
It is possible, of course, that
the defector's mind could have
snapped under the pressure of his
confinement, and that he acted ir-
rationally in putting himself in
the hands of the KGB. But that
does not satisfactorily explain the
Soviets' decision to send Yur-
chenko to the State Department
for the interview. The embassy
could have kept Yurchenko indef-
initely. It was under no obligation
to give him another opportunity to
save his life. Moreover, if Yur-
chenko had actually given away
important secrets, then the KGB
would have had to guard him
tightly until he was squeezed of
every drop of information about
the extent of his betrayal. Indeed,
the Soviets could be confident
that Yurchenko would return
from the State Department only if
he was a well-disciplined KGB of-
ficer who had already demon-
strated his loyalty by carrying out
a provocative assignment.
At another press conference,
on his return to Moscow, Yur-
chenko said that while in CIA cus-
tody he had used the debriefing
sessions to learn the agency's ma-
jor areas of interest and to study
its interrogation techniques. Nev-
ertheless. the CIA steadfastly
clung to the line that Yurchenko's
defection had been sincere. It
even awarded him "bona fides," a
term signifying that he had abso-
lutely proved his authenticity.
While Yurchenko's startling
reemergence last spring should
end that myth, it hardly answers
every question about this as-
tounding affair. What is certain is
that he was a human monkey
wrench sent by the KGB into the
inner workings of U.S. intelli-
gence. Whether by design or by
accident. Yurchenko acted as a
red herring that confused the
CIA's investigation of the betrayal
of Tolkachev and the other
agents. Although the information
he provided may have been accu-
rate, it pointed the CIA to the
wrong trail. The Year of the Spy is
over, yet the chilling possibility
still exists that there is a mole in
the CIA. sr+
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et' HOW WE
TRICKED THEM
Yevgeny
Burin yantseu.
shown below in his
Soviet Army
officer's uniform,
collected military
intelligence in
the U.S. until he was
seized by the FBI
(right) as a spy.
April 16. 1983. Night on a desert-
ed road in rural Maryland. A blue
Chrysler stops, and a heavyset
man in jeans and a red wind-
breaker gets out cautiously. He
walks into the weeds, picks up a
plastic garbage bag. At that in-
stant, nine FBI agents break
from the bushes, their search-
lights blinding him. The Russian
whirls and flips the bag?con-
taining Star Wars secrets?high
into the air. It hits the road like a
wounded bird.
"You are under arrest for vio-
lation of the espionage statute.
Do you understand that?"
"What are you doing?" the
Russian cries. He is pale with
panic. "I am lost my way."
"What did you pick up back
there?" an agent demands.
"What? I peed. 1 look for the
rest room." Indeed, the agents
notice that the man has wet his
pants. When they take his 1.13.,
they see they have caught Lt. Col,
Yevgeny Barmyantsev. a high-
ranking Soviet military attache.
For Bill O'Keefe, the 37-year-
old FBI agent who planned the
operation, the arrest was sweet
revenge. His job, then as now, is
to monitor and impede Soviet in-
telligence activity in the Wash-
ington. D.C.. area. "The walk-in
spy traffic was getting out of
hand," he says. In broad daylight
Americans were going into the
Soviet embassy and Soviet Mili-
tary Office, sanctioned diplo-
matic outposts, with offers to
sell U.S. secrets. "It was ridicu-
lous how easily they were accept-
ing them, as if the order was,
'Hey, even if a wacko comes in,
talk to him. It's more informa-
tion than we've had before.' "
O'Keefe hatched a plan for a
"controlled walk-in" to the SMO.
The operation was code-named
Jagwire (the pun on "jaguar"
suggested a pounce). The idea
was to recruit, train and dangle
a civilian?something the FBI
had never tried in its counterin-
telligence war with the Soviets.
Now, for the first time, the FBI
reveals the covert methods it
used to entrap a Russian spy.
?
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Finding the human bait for Jag-
wire wasn't easy. For seven weeks
Bill O'Keefe called on executives
of the Washington area's defense
firms and think tanks, making a
pitch for an employee who would
pretend to steal classified infor-
mation for the Soviets. O'Keefe
struck out 18 times. None of the
companies would go along. In-
deed. the FBI agent couldn't
blame them. The risks were too
great and there was little in it for
them if the plan succeeded.
Finally O'Keefe came to River-
side Research Institute, which
studies technical systems for
tracking ballistic missiles. River-
side's 45-year-old chief of securi-
ty, John Stine, agreed to help
O'Keefe find an employee to play
spy. But as they talked, it struck
O'Keefe that Stine himself?a di-
vorce. a former Navy intelligence
officer?fit the bill perfectly. "He
was suave and debonair." says
O'Keefe. "He had the right person-
ality. the right moves." Just as
O'Keefe was wondering how he
might suggest it, John Stine blurt-
ed, "How about me?"
For the .next 11 months Stine
97-r
fr
INE BEGAN
TO TRAIN FOR A DANGEROUS
DOUBLE GAR
and the FBI rehearsed the roles of
the dangle. meeting secretly in the
same room of a suburban D.C. ho-
tel. Behind double-locked doors
and dark cranberry curtains,
Stine would sit at a table, lit dimly
by a hanging lamp. Facing him
was an agent. playing "the Rus-
sian." O'Keefe watched from the
shadows. Stine acted the part of a
treasonous employee, refining his
manner, mastering his cover sto-
ries about gambling debts and his
need for money.
O'Keefe staged different sce-
narios. In one session the Russian
listened to Stine's pitch, then
stormed cut, saying. "Sorry, this
is a diplomatic establishment"
"That threw him." says O'Keefe
gleefully. "We had to coach him to
be demanding, to insist that he
was for real." The nights would
wear on. and when Stine reached
his limit of fatigue. the agents
would ride him harder. Afterward
they would repair to the Madhat-
ter tavern to toss down Russian
vodka and let off steam. The se-
cret seances were turning Stine
and O'Keefe into fast friends.
Only the president of Riverside
Research Institute knew about
Jagwire. Stine gave his colleagues
and girlfriends a variety of ex-
cuses for his after-hours preoccu-
pation. But he was growing impa-
tient with the unending drills. At
last the Pentagon released a batch
of Riverside's classified papers
that Stine would dangle as bait
to the Russians. The papers
described a space-based, laser
tracking system that would later
be part of the Star Wars defense
plan.
His fellow employees saw
nothing unusual when Stine. who
had a top-secret security clear-
ance, took the papers from the
company safes. "In fact it was too
easy." Stine recalls. "I was copy-
ing stuff, and people would come
up and offer to help. Secrets were
falling out of the copier, and secre-
taries and senior engineers were
pitching in to sort them. I got so
much damn help I had to start all
over again?the Russians would
be suspicious if they checked for
fingerprints."
The operation was set for
Thanksgiving Day. 1982. Surveil-
lance at the SMO might not be as
intense on a holiday: the Soviets
would appreciate that caution.
The night before, the recruit met
with the agents once more for a
dress rehearsal, complete with
glue-on mustache and itchy ia-4.
By day John Stine handled security at a high-tech R&Dfirrn: by night he played a debt-rtdden traitor who goes to the Soviets in disguise.
Contintli
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Irish walking hat to obscure his
profile. The FBI men then took
him out and got him drunk. Signs
of a hangover. O'Keefe had pro-
nounced, would make for a more
convincing traitor.
Woozy and shaking, Stine spent
the next morning fussing with a
gray hair tint. As O'Keefe watched
from a hotel window, Stine got
into a taxi and started for the So-
viet Military Office. Strapped
around his waist, underneath his
sweater, was a corset of docu-
ments. A hell of a way to spend
Thanksgiving, he thought. I'm
wearing a cheap disguise. posing
as a guy who would sell out his
country.
Lighting Kools one after anoth-
er. Stine worried that the Soviets
wouldn't take the bait If they did,
would they do business with him?
If not, would they detain him? Kill
him? He took a swig of scotch to
taint his breath and shuffled into
the SMO. a rather rundown brick
building off Embassy Row.
Approaching a clerk behind a
bulletproof window. Stine an-
nounced. "I want to speak to an
Air Force officer." His legs shook
as the clerk escorted him inside.
"It was very dingy," Stine remem-
bers. "Frumpy furniture, a musty
smell, dust hanging in the air. It
gave the impression that a bunch
of bachelors worked there."
He was handed a registration
card, but following O'Keefe's ad-
vice, he only fumbled with it: he
didn't fill it out. Suddenly a voice
boomed. "Can I help you?" This.
as Stine would later learn, was Lt.
Col. Vyacheslav Pavlov. Yevgeny
Barmyantsev's right-hand man.
E WAS TOLD
TO CLIMB INTO THE TRUNK
OF THE CAR
Stine thought who would take
this nondescript. pudgy fellow for
an intelligence officer?
"I'm here . . ." Stine balked. "I
want to do some business.''
"What kind of business?"
"I'm with Riverside Research. I
want to do business with you."
When Pavlov protested that he
was a diplomat, Stine cut him off.
"I want to talk to you. In private."
The Russian steered his guest
to a small sitting room. He intro-
duced himself as "Nick." As soon
as Stine began to talk about River-
side Research. Pavlov reached for
a radio on the table next to him
and tuned to a loud rock station.
"Obviously," says Stine. "he was
concerned that the room had been
wired, or that I had. The radio
made it even harder to under-
stand him because his English
wasn't good."
Stine began to brag about his
access to classified documents.
Pavlov insisted again that as a
diplomat he didn't have any inter-
est in anything illegal. Then the
Russian stood up. saying. "I have
to leave the room for a minute." It
was Suite's cue to reach under his
sweater and wrench loose the sets
of documents from his belly. Each
was stamped SECRET. "His eyes
really lit up," says Stine. "He
looked through them, obviously
surprised, nodding, very excited,
like he felt he really had some-
thing hot running. Then I pulled
the other documents out the ones
tucked against my back. and I've
never seen a broader smile on
anybody's face."
For the rest of the morning the
Russian would leave the office
arid come back again, each time
with fresh. concise questions:
"How many documents do you
have access to? Do you have prob-
lems entering? Copying? Are
there alarms?" Always the door
was left open a crack?Stine knew
they were keeping an eve on him.
During one of these interludes
Stine peeled off the mustache.
Pavlov appreciated the disguise.
At another point Stine asked for a
drink and Pavlov brought out a
sweet Armenian brandy. "I'd
force it down," Stine says. "and
he'd put more in my glass." Each
time he was alone. Stine gulped
some more, hoping to seem an au-
thentically desperate character.
Occasionally Pavlov would
ask a question and then stop the
American from responding oral-
ly. "He wanted a lot of my answers
written out in case we were being
bugged," Stine says. "Then he
would try to relax things with
some more personal conversa-
tion. He expressed quite an inter-
est in the sex life of Americans. I
fabricated a few stones. He asked
me. clearly shocked and in-
trigued. 'You meet girls in bars?
You go home with them?'"
Stine had been at the SMO for
six hours and had consumed four
packs of Kools. He began to fear
they would keep him for the night.
or even longer. "It crossed my
mind." he says, "that if I misspoke
I might be going out in the gar-
bage." Across town, Bill O'Keefe
was worried too. There was noth-
ing the FBI could do to help Stine
now. Then Pavlov came in with an
envelope containing $500. He pro-
duced a map and instructions for
Stine to copy. The dangle had
worked: Stine was given a time to
go to a phone booth in a shopping
center in Annandale, Va., and
wait for an assignment. "Be there
in six weeks." Pavlov said:
Now he led Stine down a hall-
way to the garage of the SMO. A
Plymouth Volare zoomed up. its
trunk popping open. "Hurry," Pav-
lov ordered. Stine crouched down
in the trunk, and the car lurched
into the streets of Washington.
The driver zigged and zagged as if
trying to shake any pursuer. Fi-
nally Stine was let out on an emp-
ty side street. He stood there be-
wildered and exhausted, very late
for his Thanksgiving dinner.
The next six weeks passed anx-
iously. Stine's meetings with
O'Keefe were few and fur- ip-o.
Lt. Col. "Nick- Pavlov
gave Stine money to buy
this camera andfam
for photographing secret
papers. Stine's
instructions, complete
with maps and
arrows, were hidden in a
crushed soda can and
cigarette pack.
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I II 11 11 1111111111 L 11.11 ILL11111[11111111111.111111111111111111 .111 II 1. .111 1_1 1
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tive?no more hanging out in bars.
He jumped when the phone rang.
looked over his shoulder wherev-
er he went, slept badly. He was
alone with his double game.
On January 12 Stine was wait-
ing in the designated booth. The
call never came. Pavlov reached
Stine at home the next day. "We
had a slight problem." he said.
"Do the same thing next week."
January 19 was icy cold. This
time the call came through. Pav-
lov told him to go to ?another
phone booth, outside a dry clean-
ers some 20 miles away in Mary-
land. He was given 20 minutes to
get there. "Well, hell." says Stine.
"I wasn't familiar with the area at
all. And as I'm taking the direc-
tions, it starts to snow."
Forty minutes later Stine skid-
ded up to the booth. "I was about
five steps away when it started
ringing." he says. "Obviously they
had been watching." Pavlov
again: "Turn around. Look left...
Four fence posts from the right.
you will find a crushed pack of
Marlboro cigarettes."
A note and a map inside the
cigarette pack now directed Stine
to another shopping center,
where he was supposed to find a
"crashed" Coca-Cola can. Weari-
ly. he drove off again. Pavlov's di-
rections seemed to swirl like the
snow. Park the car. Cross the
street. Walk down Atlantic Ave-
nue. Turn left behind the 7-Eleven
store. Go along the path to the
fourth fence post.
The fence was a 10-foot-high
wire mesh surrounding a desert-
ed utility area. Digging bare-
handed through the snow. Stine
could find no soda can. "It was
nearly eleven at night and colder
AVLOV
CRUISED THE DROP SITE
BUT WOULDN'T BITE
than hell." he recalls. "I was about
to give up when I saw a jogger
come by, complete with sweat-
band. He looked a little funny be-
cause he was smoking a cigarette.
It was Pavlov." Stine followed the
paunchy runner along a path onto
a bridge. There in the pitch dark.
Pavlov handed Stine a Coke can
stuffed with currency.
"He'd thought I was going to
come back to the phone to con-
firm that I'd understood the mes-
sage," Stine says.. "But I'd said I'd
come back if I hadn't under-
stood." Pavlov had had no time to
plant the can. The Russian asked
for the documents. "What docu-
ments?" Stine replied. "You didn't
tell me to bring any."
Suddenly they saw the beam
of a flashlight. It was a policeman.
Pavlov sprinted away. leaving his
agent holding a bent soda can
containing S4.800 and incrimi-
nating instructions.
"Listen, officer." Stine began.
his mind racing. "I was visiting a
girl. We had a fight. I was taking a
walk to cool off."
"Take your hand out of your
pocket." the cop said, his flash-
light in Stine's face. "Who's the
othcr guy?"
"I don't know. He wanted a
light."
"So what were you doing back
there by that fence?"
Stine swallowed hard. "I had to
take a leak."
"Four times?"
Finally the policeman gave up.
Stine beat it, still clutching his
Coke can.
His next assignment was to pho-
tograph additional documents
and to leave the film in a garbage
bag near a tree in an isolated sec-
tion of Rockville, Md. The FBI
knew the area as "drop-site coun-
try.- because the Russians used it
so often. But O'Keefe was disap-
pointed to learn that the drop
would not take place until April 9.
three months away. Jagwire was
moving too slowly. The FBI decid-
ed to wrap up the operation and
seize Pavlov when he picked up
the stuff.
On the appointed evening it
was raining as Stine left the bag
and nine rolls of film. The G-men
were spread out in ditches, be-
hind trees, covering all the escape
routes. Two hours later Pavlov
drove up. but something must
have spooked him, for though he
cruised the site four times he nev-
er got out of the car. Over his field
telephone O'Keefe was informed
that Pavlov had gone back to
Washington to meet with his su-
periors, who in turn evidently
conferred with Moscow. The FBI
agents waited all night in the
pouring rain, in case Pavlov re-
turned. "We looked like thugs
crawling out or a grave site," says
O'Keefe.
The next morning a new voice
told Stine on the phone. "There's a
problem. Same place. same time?
next Saturday." This time Barm-
yantsev decided to make the pick-
up himself. It was a bad mistake:
He was charged with spying by
the U.S. government, declared
persona non grata and shipped
home three days after touching
the garbage bag. Vyacheslav Pav-
lov was recalled shortly after.
Hydra-headed. the SMO re-
places its agents in the U.S. as fast
as the FBI can trap and expel
them. Just three months ago. in
another part of the Maryland .
woods. Bill O'Keefe snared Col.
Vladimir lzmaylov by dangling an
Air Force officer. But do these
counterintelligence scams have
any long-range value? O'Keefe in-
sists that they make the other
side wary of genuine traitors.
Why not banish the SMO out-
right? Because then the Ameri-
can agents at the U.S. military of-
fice in Moscow would lose their
base as well. It is indeed a double
game.
As for John Stine. he got a few
unsettling phone calls from the
Soviets after the incident?he'd ?
pick up and hear silence. But that
didn't last long. He still works at
Riverside, and he still socializes
with his buddies in the FBI. They
look on Stine as an honorary?and
unpaid?agent. Stine is proud to
have been of service.*
Stine and O'Keefe return to the out-of-the-way intersection where Operation Jagwire culminated. The back roads of Montgomery County. Md.. are
located just short of the travel limit-25 mtlesfrom downtown Washington?beyond which Soviet diplomats may not go without permission_
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/09/21 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000301860001-6