WHAT WHY HOW NEWSDAY AND LOS ANGELES TIMES - 2 OCTOBER 1986

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00561R000100160019-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 6
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 23, 2012
• Sequence Number: 19
• Publication Date: October 6, 1986
• Content Type: MEMO

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The Soviets
WHATHad on Daniloff
U.S. Hurried
WHYTo Arrange Swap
CIA Bungling
HOWJeopardized Him
By Roy Gutman
Newsday Washington Bureau
Washington - The'
United States was ea-_
ger to have Nicholas
Danl o freed from a Soviet ris-
on in part cause of the CIA's.
mishandling of a contact the
agency had with him last year,
U S officials said yesterday.
They said the Reagan
administration feared
that the CIA a ins -
vertently implicated
the American reporter
in a way that could cause him
serious trouble under prolonged
questioning by the Soviets and
could embarrass the administra-
tion and extend the confrontation. The
contact involved a communication that
ani o delivered from a So;Ret citizen
The U.S. News & World Report cor-
respondent was arrested on Aug. 30,
more than a year later, after receiving
a package from a Soviet acquaintance
containing classified materials. The
Reagan administrati on said he had
been framed. Officials said his arrest
was an apparent response to the FBI's
arrest in New York a week earlier of
Gennadiy Zakharov,, a Soviet UN em-
ployee, on espionage charges.
For more than a week, the White
House rejected Soviet demands to give
equal treatment to Daniloff and Zak-
harov. But on Sept. 12, the adminis-
tration relented. Daniloff was turned
over to the custody of the U.S. ambas-
sador in Moscow, and Zakharov was
remanded into the custody of the Sovi-
et ambassador in New York.
Secretary. of State George Shultz de-
fended the equal treatment on hu-
manitarian grounds, and White House
officials, speaking to reporters on
background, said that they were wor-
ried that Daniloff might not be able to
withstand the mental pressure of fur-
ther incarceration.
But following Daniloff s return to
the United States, officials disclosed
what they said was the main reason
for the change of U.S. attitude. This
was the report in the Soviet govern-
ment newspaper Izvestia on Sent. 8 of
an incident involving Daniloff that
had occurred at the beginning of 1985.
"In some circles, there was fear of
him being interrogated for a number
of days," said an official, who asked
not to be named, but who is with an
agency that opposed the arrangement.
"You don't know what else would hap-
pen. There was a fear in the govern-
ment that Daniloff could have been in
big trouble."
The earlier incident involved a man
who identified himself as a priest and
who sought out Daniloff with p rt-
ed information about Soviet youth or-
ganizations. A few days after the
priest, who called himself "Father Ro-
man," promised to drop off a packet of
material on religious subjects, Dani-
loff found an envelope left outside his
apartment and addressed to the U.S.
Embassy.
,Jncertain what to do with the pack-
age, ani o finally brought it to the
embassy, where an official it in
his presence, sources close to D_a_niTo_ff
saM It contained other enve ones in-
cluding one addressed to CIA Director
William Ca_qpy
One letter contained a reference to
rockets ets and other military su .sec .
The letter addressed to Casey was
handed over to the CIA station hief in
oscow, and he in turn gave it to a
C subordinate in the emb
urces said.
One embassy official asked Daniloff
how to get in touch with "Roman," and
Daniloff provided that information.
In an unusual move, which one sen-
ior U.S. official in Washington termed
'be ama eun i,"tFieZ su or i-
n telephoned man and on
the o 4n line, said, m a men o t-
co ai and acknowledged receiving
ac e. e a so sen man a n
in whit he used words to the effect
that he is receives- your package
from your Journalist en .
oursces close to ani o quoted him
as saying that the episode was thor-
oughly discussed during his interroga-
tion. It was also mentioned in the in-
dictment against him handed down on
Sept. 7:
Daniloff a wife, Ruth, told reporters
in Moscow that Roman was a "bogus
priest the KGB sicced on Nick at the
end of 1984."
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The first reference to the letter in
the Soviet media was contained in the
Sept. 8. fzvestia article. It said that an
American diplomat, Paul M. Stom-
baugh, had written to Roman and
mentioned "a reporter" who passed the
letter from Roman to a designated ad-
dress on Jan 24, 1985.
"It remains to be added that the re-
porter mentioned above was Nicholas
Danilof, who passed the above-men-
tioned letter to intelligence," Izvestia
said. The report did not mention the
phone call. But it added, "Are more
proofs needed? They exist."
Stombaugh was declared persona
non grata and expelled from the Soviet
Union in June, 1985, for alleged espio-
nage.
On Sept. 13. a day after Daniloff and
Zakharov were released to the custody
of their respective ambassadors the
Soviet ores ministry spokesman
claimed "irrefutable" evidence that
r3anfloff had acted on instructions of
an American Murat Natirboff, who
was nti in Soviet news accounts
as the CIA station c ief in oosscow
Sources close to Daniloff said that
Natirboff, who had the title of counsel-
or for regional affairs, left Moscow
about three days after Danilofl'a arrest.
The CIA refused to comment on the
incident with Father Roman or allega-
tions in the official 'vie media that
Stour au or atirbo had been -in-
volved. at Pherson. a s eswom-
an said: " you write an article about
people who are alleg y inte igence
officers, it sure doesn't help an dy
wet er you re n t or not." She also
noted that the Agents entities Act,
w llF cF makes losure of CI ents'
identities illegal, is still in force.
During his interrogation in Lefor-
tovo prison, sources close to Daniloff
said, he asked his Soviet questioner
what he should have done in a case
where a Soviet citizen approached him
with an offer of information about So-
viet life. The interrogator replied that
Daniloff should tell the Soviet citizen
to clear out.
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