DOUBLE AGENT UNDER WATCH WHEN HE FLED

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000201840041-5
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 21, 2012
• Sequence Number: 41
• Publication Date: October 3, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/02/21 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000201840041-5
` 'PT! LE APPEARED NEW YORK TIMES
QN P*~ 3 October 1985
Z
Double Agent
Uieder Watch
When He Fled
While some C.I.A. employees have
sold stolen classified documents to
Soviet intelligence operatives, there is
no record of a C.I.A. employee working
on a continuing basis for Soviet intelli-
gence. Double agents who spend years
establishing themselves in a rival Intel.
ugence agency are called "moles" in
espionage jargon. The question
whether the C.I.A. has ever been pens.
trated by a Soviet mole has long been a
subject of heated dispute in the Amer-
ican intelligence community.
Meanwhile, the District Attorney of
Santa Fe, Chet Walter, said that Mr.
Howard had probably fled to Texas
shortly before a team of F.B.I. agents
moved in on on his home Saturday. Mr.
Howard, he said, had flown late last
month from New Mexico to Austin,
where he disappeared.
An intelligence source said earlier
this week that Mr. Howard was thought
to have fled the country' after he
abruptly resigned from his job as an
economics aide to a legislative finance
committee in the New Mexico legisla.
cure on Sept. 22. He took that job after
he left the intelligence agency.
His former employer in New Mexico
said he believed that Mr. Howard may
have fled to Mexico, which intelligence
officials say has long been a connecting
point for Soviet espionage activities di-
rected at the United States. ,
Friends and coworkers said they
were stunned by reports that Mr. How-
ard had provided intelligence informa-
tion to the Soviet Union. They 'de-
scribed him as a politically conserva-
tive, hard-working family man whose
only major mistake was his arrest last
year on charges of aggravated battery.
The arrest came after Mr. Howard
threatened three men with a gun fol-
lowing a confrontation in a New Mexico
bar, officials said. He was convicted
and placed on probation for five years.
According to associates, Mr. Howard
was a gun enthusiast.
Administration officials' have said
that Mr. Howard held an "operational"
post with the C.I.A. According to The
Concerning g the douse agent dispute,
Wallop, a Wyo
Republican who is a former member of
the Sate Intelligence Committee,
said In enan interview that Adm. Stan-
field Turner; the former head of the
C.I.A., had said in 197'9 that it would be
impossible for the Soviets to place a
"mole" in the agency.
Mr. Turner could not be reached for
comment. In his book, "Secrecy and
Democracy," he criticized James J.
Angleton, a former chief of counter-in,
telligence at the agency. Mr. Turner
wrote that Mr. Angleton had 'shown
"excessive zeal" in his pursuit of, a
"mole" within the C.I.A.
But Mr. Wallop said. the committee.
has been urging William J. Casey, di-
rector of the C.I.,, to put more empa
sis an ferreting out double agents.
3 By STEPHEN ENGELBERG.
Special to The New, York Tine
WASHINGTON, Oct. 2 - A former
officer of the Central Intelligence
Agency, identified as a double agent
working for the Soviet Union, disap-
peared while under surveillance by the
Federal Bureau of Investigation, law-
enforcement officials and intelligence
sources-said today.
. ' The sources said. that the former
C.I.A. officer, Edward L. Howard, used
the cover of a moonless night to elude
F.B.I. agents watching his home in a
remote area. of Santa Fe, N.M. Offi-
cials said Mr. Howard was identified as
a double agent by a Soviet intelligence
officer who defected to the West in
July. A doublfl agent is planted in the
intelligence organization of one coun-
try while actually working for that of
another.
However, one official of the Reagan
Administration said tonight that Mr.
~ Howard did not begin providing infor-
i mation to the Soviet Union until after
he left the C.I.A. The official said such
actions could be damaging, but would
not be as serious a security breach as
the recruitment of an active C.I.A. em-
ployee.
.
an
at
imply that this was a muff is not accu- least one other former American offi-
rate. These men were not under orders dal as a source of information for the
to stay with him at all costs." - i Soviet intelligence service.
Meanwhile, the Federal Bureau of
Investigation said tonight that a war-
rant had been issued for Mr. Howard's
arrest charging him with espionage in
conspiring to deliver "national defense
information" to a foreign government.
The F.B.I. said Mr. Howard worked for
the agency from January 1981 to June
1983.
It was not clear how Mr. Howard
learned he was a suspect in the case.
One law enforcement official famil-
iar with the case said the bureau's sur-
veillance an Mr. Howard was not in-
tended to' contain" him or prevent his
flight because no legal proceeding had
been begun against him at the time he
first came under surveillance.
' `This man was a trained agent,"
said the official. "It was a moonless
night and he carefully picked his time
to leave."
"It was a loose surveillance," the of-
ficial said. "There was no moon out. To
Associated Press, State Department
records show that Mr. Howard was as-
signed to the United States Embassy in
Moscow where his cover was a job as a
budget specialist.
The State Department has . histori-
cally provided diplomatic cover for
C.I.A. operatives working in- hostile
capitals. According to an in ce
source, the fact that Mr. Howwas
assigned to Moscow meant that he was
an officer of the Soviet Division of the
agency's Directorate for Operations -
the.clandestine service of the C.I.A.
Meanwhile, the Senate Select Com-
mittee on Intelligence was briefed to-
day on the defection of Vitaly Yurchen.
ko, the Soviet official who is said to
have identified Mr
Howard
d
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/02/21: CIA-RDP90-00965R000201840041-5
 Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/02/21 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000201840041-5
Orgattti*t theaeittil.
Directorate of
Intelligence
Directorate of
Operations
Comptroller General
Counsel
Director of
Policy and
Planning
Inspector
General
Equal
Director of Employment
Personnel Opportunity
Directorate of
Science and
Technology
Directorate of
Administration
Deputy Director
for Operations
Assistant Deputy
Director for
Operations
Staff Elements
Includes foreign intelligence, counter-
intelligence, covert actions and
communications
Area Divisions
Divided into geographic sectors
agent. served in the Soviet Bloc division
aufCB' "TMe tt S::lr bgetrce CwnmunlY, by Jeffrey Rictteison.
?i985 by Ballinger AitblisAing Co..
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/02/21 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000201840041-5