SPY CASE INTENSIFIES SECURITY QUESTIONS AT C.I.A.

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00901R000600410004-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 5
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 14, 2005
• Sequence Number: 4
• Publication Date: November 25, 1985
• Content Type: NSPR

AppOQy9t0lp Release2 /Qember% DP91-00901 R000600410004-6
ON PAGE h1L
Spy Case Intensifies Security
Questions at C.I.A..
By STEPHEN ENGELBERG
Special to The NW York Time
Failed a Polygraph Test
Administration officials say the
charges against Sharon M. Scranage, a ?
C.I.A. clerk who pleaded guilty in Sep-
tember to identifying covert agents in
Ghana, arose when she tailed a routine
polygraph test administered by the
agency. Additionally, the C.I.A. was
also responsible for initiating the inves-
tigation of Mr. Chin, officials said.
"Having been one of those who has
pushed for improved counterintelli-
gence," Mr. Leahy said, "I am not
going to say: You beefed it up, you
caught some spies, and now I'm going
to beat you about the head and shoul-
ders for that.' "
Mr. Leahy said it was too early to
speculate on any possible damage Mr.
Chin may have caused. Administration
officials said that analysts at the For-
eign Broadcast Information Service re-
ceive reports from the C.I.A. and other
agencies. Such documents, Adminis-
tration officials said, in the hands of
hostile intelligence services, could be
useful in understanding general trends
in the Government's approach to a
country.
The reports do not include the identi-
ties of covert agents gathering infor-
mation, the officials said. But they cau-
tioned that in some instances, a careful
reading of a document would allow a
hostile intelligence service to deduce
that a particular piece of data could
only have come from one source.
Investigators have not yet specified
what sort of security clearances Mr.
Chin held, but the Federal Bureau of
Investigation did say in a statement
Saturday that he was a naturalized
American Citizen. According to former
C.I.A. officials, it is unlikely that a
naturalized American citizen would
have been granted one of the higher-
level security clearances.
The C.I.A.'s approach to counterin-
telligence has long been a matter of
concern to some critics in Congress.
Wyoming
Senator Malcolm Wallop, at
Republican, has contended that the
agency is insufficiently sensitive to the
question of whether a double agent has
penetrated upper levels of the agency.
The agency has never ruled out the
possibility that such an agent had
gained access to its secrets, but its offi-
cials have given little credence to Mr.
Wallop's assertions.
A senior Administration official said
that it was almost inevitable that some
hostile intelligence service would suc-
ceed in penetrating the agency. '
never occurred to me that there
weren't spies in the agency," the offi-
cial said. "We have propounded this
myth, and it has been a useful myth,
but it's still a myth, that somehow
Americans are not vulnerable."
Noting that thousands of intelligence
agents direct their efforts against the
United States, the official said, "It
shouldn't surprise anyone that there
are spies within the United States Gov-
ernment."
The issue is an important one for an
intelligence service, former C.I.A. offi-
cers say, since the recruitment of
agents in the field depends on a guaran-
tee that their identities will be kept se-
cret.
This year's round of espionage cases
involving C.I.A. employees began with
Miss Scranage, who was a clerk in the
agency's station in the Ghanaian capi-
tal, Accra. She admitted to the authori-
ties that she had given classified infor-
mation to her Ghanaian lover. Later
this year, a Soviet intelligence officer,
Vitaly Yurchenko, defected and helped
the F.B.I. develop espionage charges
WASHINGTON, Nov. 24 - The ar-
rest of a former Central Intelligence
Agency analyst on charges of spying
for the Chinese has raised new ques-
tions about security at the C.I.A.,
whose standing in Congress and within
the Reagan Administration has been
damaged by security breaches and
public reverses.
Administration officials said that the
analyst,- Larry Wu-Tai Chin, had ac-
cess to relatively low-level classified
material in his job at the Foreign
Broadcast Information Service, an
arm of the C.I.A. But intelligence spe-
cialists said the significance of the case
was that an employee may have
evaded the agency's security proce-
duses. - which' include regular poly-
grkph, or lie-detector, tests - for three
decades.
Additionallyr, an affidavit filed Satur-
aay by Federal investigators says that
Mr.' Chin was able to take classified
material from his workplace by hiding
it lP his briefcase and clothing.
William J. Casey, the Director of
Central Intelligence, has in recent
months been confronted with increas-
ing criticism from- Congress and the
White House ever several well-publi-
cized incidents
These include a Soviet intelligence
officer who defected to the West and
then returned to Moscow after holding
two news conferences denouncing the
agency; a former C.I.A. officer who
was charged with spying for the Soviet
Union, anda former agency clerk who
admitted passing secret information to
officials in Ghana.
',"There are a lot of strange occu
reiices here that at least show people
were not on the ball," an Administra-
tion official, who spoke on the conditions
that he not be identified, said in a re-i
cent interview. "Obviously there's'
great concern. It's not like the agency
is not getting a lot of money and sup-
port."
Senator Patrick J. Leahy, the Ver-
mont Democrat who is vice chairman
of the Senate Select Committee on In-
telligence, said the string of public em
barrassments is taking its toll on mo-
rale at the C.I.A.
"Some in the agency are reeling
from it, and are feeling very, very de-
fensive," Mr. Leahy said. "They
shouldn't be. The C.I.A. is still the best
intelligence service in the world. They
should realize that every major intelli-
gence service is going to have some
things go wrong. Unfortunately the
things that go right aren't made pub-
lic."
Mr. Leahy, who has previously
called for improvements in the agen-
cy's security procedures, said that
some of the recent cases against C.I.A.
employees had been initiated by the
agency
Sm" M. Turner, President Car-
ter's rector rat intelligence,
said today he believed the agency's se-
curity procedures were lax when he
took over the post in 1977. He asserted
that "considerable improvements"
had been made under the Carter Ad-
ministration, but said, "I wouldn't
want to profess I thought it was where
it should be."
Mr. Turner said that the recruitment
of an information-service employee by
a hostile intelligence service was not an
especially serious breach of security.
F.B.I.S. is not the heart of the
C.I.A.," he said. "It is pretty largely an
unclassified organization. That is why I
take a less than cataclysmic view of
this."
But Mr. Turner said it was "terri-
ble" that it took three decades to un-
cover the case. "Whether the data is
significant or not," he said, "anyone
who is passing information like this
should be caught in less than 30 years."
against Edward Lee Howard, a former.
C.I.A. officer who had been dismissed.
According to Administration offi-
cials, Mr. Howard had helped Soviet in-.
telligence agents uncover an American
agent, A. G. Tolkachev, who had been
providing the C.I.A. with sensitive de-
tails about Soviet weapons research.
Just this month, Mr. Yurchenko,
whose defection had been touted by the
C.I.A. as a coup, announced his return
to the Soviet Union. The Administra-
tion is still trying to determine whether
he actually defected and then changed
his mind or was a Soviet plant. Some
former C.I.A. officials have suggested
Mr. Yurchenko's case is part of a pat-
tern of mishandling defectors.
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HUTCHINSON NEWS (KS)
14 November 1985
rat ONLY
Ex-CIA chief leery of
dealings in Nicaragua
By Duane Schrag
The Hutchinson News
The CIA's involvement in Nica-
ragua is hurting its image and ulti-
mately could hurt the organization,
according to the man who ran the
agency for four years.
"I am not in favor of what the
CIA is doing in Nicaragua myself,"
the former agency head, Stansfield
Turner, said Wednesday during a
press conference in Hutchinson.
He said covert action - in-
fluencing events without the public
knowing it - is really foreign pol-
icy, not intelligence. And what is
happening in Nicaragua is hardly
covert anymore.
"It's the most open, overt, covert
action ever known," he said.
Turner was the last speaker in
the 1985 Dillon Lecture Series and
spoke to an audience of 1,200 people
at the Sports Arena.
Turner's government career be-
gan in the Navy, culminating in his
being named admiral of the Second
Fleet and commander-in-chief of
NATO's Southern Flank. He took
over as director of the CIA at a
time when the agency was under
fire for its role in such activities as
Watergate and covert action in
Chile.
The CIA took a terrible buffet.
ing from the media and the public
and it hurt," he said.
He took steps to make the agency
more accountable to the public and
Congress, which he thinks has
strengthened the CIA. Turner
called the changes revolutionary.
One was the creation of a congres-
sional committee that reviews CIA
activities.
Over the long run, we can't have
good intelligence in our country un-
less we have some accountability,"
he said.
Turner used the recent leak of
sensitive information as an ex-
ample. President Reagan was out-
raged when the Washington Post
published an article alleging that he
signed an order that involved a plot
to assassinate Libyan leader Moam-
mar Khadafy.
"It leaks because it's a very con.
troversial activity," he said in re-
sponse to a question about the leak.
"That's the price we pay for having
oversight. Some people think the
price is too high. I don't."
Our democracy, combined with,
our superior technology, gives us
the edge in the espionage battle, he
said. He stressed the importance of
democracy in intelligence.
"It's on our side because we have
the better ideology," he said. "De-
mocracy must balance secrecy."
During his four years as head of
the CIA, Turner admitted he never
did find himself trapped in a Swiss
chalet with a mysterious blonde.
"Being the chief of intelligence
really isn't much like being Double
Agent James Bond 007," Turner
said.
But intelligence is an exciting
profession, he-added.
Stansfield Turner emphasizes a point during his lecture at
the Hutchinson Sports Arena Wednesday. Turner headed the
CIA for four years.
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 Approved For Release 20YT2/'UA-0901 R000O
4 ARTICLE APPEARED 6 November 1985
ON PAGE.. . .
INTERNATIONAL
Congress to Study CIA Handling
of KGB Official's Re-Defection
WASHINGTON-Members of the House
and Senate Intelligence committees. say
their panels plan to conduct lengthy inves-
tigations of the Central Intelligence
Agency's handling of the surprise re-defec-
tion of Vitaly Yurchenko, a former KGB
official.
CIA officials held a round of briefings
with lawmakers yesterday explaining that
Mr. Yurchenko, former deputy chief of the
KGB's North American desk, was in this
This article was prepared by John
J. Fialka, David Shribman and Rob-
ert S. Greenberger.
9
city's crowded Georgetown area Saturday
evening to have dinner with CIA agents at
a small French restaurant, Au Pied de Co-
chon. He excused himself and then appar-
ently walked or was taken a few blocks up
the street to the newly built Soviet com-
pound.
'You've either got a defector who was
allowed to just walk away under circum-
that, before the din- 9'' W111
ner, Mr. Yurchenko Vilaly Yurchenko
appeared to be de-
pressed. There was some speculation that
the depression may have been related to
Mr. Yurchenko's relationship with a
woman who reportedly lives in Canada.
CIA officials indicated during the brief-
ings that they were still unsure whether
Mr. Yurchenko voluntarily went to the So-
viets or whether he was, somehow, recap-
tured by Soviet agents waiting for him in
the busy Saturday night crowd.
Meanwhile, U.S. officials debriefed Mr.
Yurchenko one more time at the State De-
stances I can't ac-
cept or you have a
double agent planted
on the U.S.," said
Sen. Patrick Leahy
(D., Vt.), vice chair-
man of the Senate
Select Committee on
Intelligence, "No
matter what, some-
thing is wrong."
Senatecommittee
members were told
partment last evening and determined he
had decided to leave the U.S. under his
own free will and that he did not appear to
be drugged. Mr. Yurchenko left the State
Department in a jubilant mood, holding his
hands above his head prize-fighter fashion
for waiting television crews. Asked
whether he was going to return to Russia,
he said: "Yes, home."
CIA Screening Process
Senate committee members said one of
the facets of the strange Yurchenko case
that they want to examine closely is how
the CIA determined that he was a credible
defector in the first place. "It's safe to say
we're going to want some of the specifics
of the screening process," said one Senate
committee member, referring to psycho-
logical tests and lie-detector examinations
that the CIA says it used on Mr. Yur-
chenko.
The CIA's debriefing of Mr. Yurchenko,
who had an overview of the heavily com-
partmentalized KGB operations in North
America, had been expected to take more
than a year, according to Reagan adminis-
tration sources. Periodically, information
taken from Yurchenko debriefings was
served up at closed hearings to Intelli-
gence Committee members as proof that
the CIA was getting an unprecedented
windfall of new spy information.
Yesterday, several congressmen said
they had been suspicious all along about
Mr. Yurchenko's testimony. "We're not ex-
perienced in this. We're laymen," said
Sen. William Cohen IR., Maine, "but
something struck us as not being right.
They (the CIA) reassured us, but there
were lingering doubts."
`Everybody Was Skeptical'
"Everybody was skeptical," said Sen.
Leahy. "The stuff seemed either we were
awfully, awfully lucky or he (Mr. Yur-
chenko) was too good to be true. Now it
turns out it was too good to be true. The
feeling here is that the CIA was had, and
not only the Congress, but the White House
had better ask some very serious ques-
tions,"
"It's not a goof-up, it's not a great trag-
edy. It's like someone giving you a bag of
candy and taking half of it back," said
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman
David Durenberger ,R., Minn.).
And not everything Mr. Yurchenko gave
his interrogators turned out to be candy.
While his ability to reveal Edward L. How-
ard-a former CIA agent who allegedly
gave the Soviets secrets about U.S. opera-
tions in Moscow-was touted on Capitol
Hill, the Howard case wasn't particularly
sweet for the CIA.
One problem was that Mr. Howard ap-
parently was given advance warning about
CIA and Federal Bureau of Investigation
interest in him and managed to escape ar-
rest. Another was that Mr. Howard had
been fired from the CIA in 1983 in a man-
ner that had reportedly left him so angry
that he threatened to disclose U.S. secrets
to Moscow. A third problem was that Mr.
Howard was given sensitive information on
U.S. spies in Moscow during what should
have been a two-year period of probation
and basic training in intelligence.
Adm. Stansfield Turner, director of the
CIA during the Carter administration, said
he changed an old CIA rule that required
agency officials to minimize firings and to
simply move agents who had "gone sour"
to less sensitive positions until their prob-
lems could be addressed. The change, ac-
cording to Adm. Turner, was made to de-
crease the danger of moles, or high-level
enemy agents within the agency.
Adm. Turner said be wonders how a
trainee like Mr. Howard could have ac-
quired sensitive information in the first
place. "There's something screwy about
that," he said.
The White House still seemed to be in a
state of shock over the surprise re-defec-
tion of Mr. Yurchenko, but an administra-
tion spokesman insisted it would have little
effect on this month's summit meeting in
Geneva.
The Yurchenko matter was discussed
during the White House's morning briefing,
but only as another item," one aide
noted. The aide said he didn't expect the
incident to spill over into domestic poli-
tics, adding: The American public be-
lieves you can't trust the Russians from
here to the door anyway. This just under-
scores that.''
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 A ri ed For Relea Ifbb 1I2 Ib 9 ~1 ~~~~0
41?Y 6 November 1985
Summit: in search of mutual benefit
exchanges were taking place would be an inhibiting fac-
tor and could open the door to more complex arrange-
- later. At first, simple and straightforward agree-
N his speech to the United Nations on Oct. 24, Presi-
dent Reagan proposed that he and Mikhail
Gorbachev talk at the coming summit about five
areas where the United States has legitimate grievances
about Soviet behavior: Afghanistan, Cambodia, Angola,
Ethiopia, and Nicaragua. The President, we had as-
sumed, was looking for a way to score points in the pub-
lic-relations campaign leading up to the summit. What-
ever the President's motives, we can only hope that he
doesn't expect to make any progress in these areas in two
days at Geneva. I . ff,.
Mr. Gorbachev is bound to see this move by the Presi-
dent as an effort to play the summit as one would play in
a zero-sum game, that is, a game in which one side wins
and the other loses. Considering all that Reagan has said
about Nicaragua, it is difficult for
Gorbachev to believe that the President
has in mind agreeing to any significant re-
sidual Soviet role or influence there. It
appears that the President is attempting
to win in all five regions by easing the So-
viet Union out of all these countries; for
Mr. Gorbachev such developments cer-
tainly would be losses.
Although these regional issues must
be tackled one day, in the reopening of se-
rious discussions with the Soviet Union
the. US should concentrate on areas
ment could be built around the interests the two
countries share in curbing international terrorism.
Recent events in Beirut have likely brought home to
Gorbachev that the USSR, as well the US, is vulnerable
to terrorists. Perhaps the silver lining in this Beirut cloud
is that the kidnapping of Soviet citizens may increase his
willingness to collaborate against terrorism. Reagan and
Gorbachev could agree to create an 'International Air-
port Inspection Agency. "The agency's function would be
to send teams of inspectors to check security procedures
in international airports. The inspectors would attempt
to board airliners with concealed weapons. If they suc-
ceeded at an airport more than once in a 30-day period,
the airport would be considered insecure. That would
trigger an obligation on the part of member countries to
The US should
concentrate on areas
where its interests
and those of the
USSR do not compete
directly.... where
both could benefit
from agreement.
where US interests and those of the Soviet Union do not
compete so directly. Why not first look for areas where
we could both benefit from reaching agreement? At least
three nonzero-sum games could be played.
The most obvious is arms control, where both are in-
terested in reducing costs and increasing stability. Here
the two leaders could move quickly by agreeing to an
easily verifiable ban against the testing of ballistic mis-
siles. Such an agreement would signal that neither leader
was interested in continuing to develop the capability for
a surprise nuclear strike at the other.
Another area of mutual interest is the inhibiting of nu-
clear proliferation. Neither the US nor the USSR has any
reason for wanting Libya - or even Argentina, Brazil,
Pakistan, or South Africa - to get the bomb. Reagan
and Gorbachev could easily agree at Geneva to form a
joint commission to pool intelligence about which coun-
tries are developing nuclear weapons and how. Each na-
tion would, of course, have a few pieces of intelligence
that could not be shared lest doing so would ;expose a.
source. Still, just the fact that the world knew that such
By Stansfield Turner
prohibit their airlines from using the air-
port for the next 30 days.
It's important that the criterion for pe-
nalizing an airport would be absolutely
objective - either the inspectors got
aboard an aircraft with a weapon or they
did not. Since the member nations would
have pledged to adhere to the results of
the inspection, they could ward off pres-
sures to make exceptions when the air-
ports of their friends were ruled unsafe.
The threat of having airports placed out
of bounds for 30 days would create pres-
sure on nations to curb international terrorism.
In none of these examples of nonzero-sum arrange-
ments would either the US or the USSR be placing any-
thing at risk if the program failed. Both have so many
nuclear weapons in excess of need that a moratorium on
testing one brand of them, ballistic missiles, could hardly
denude us, even if we subsequently had to start produc-
tion and testing. Because neither nation wants anyone to
join the nuclear club, giving away information about pro-
liferation wouldn't hurt us, even if it did no good.
The President has committed himself to exploring the
five tough zero-sum situations he laid before the UN.
Let's hope he also makes a major effort in areas where
the mutual benefit is so clear that Gorbachev will be hard
pressed not to agree. If we can open the door a little in the
nonzero-sum areas, it will be easier to slip in the tough
zero-sum ones at a second summit.
Stansfield Turner, author of "Secrecy and De-
mocracy - The CIA in Transition, " was director of
central intelligence from 1977 to 1981.
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 proved For Release 2005/W V l 1- l AWP91-00901R00060
5 November 1985
STANSFIELD TURNER
Guest columnist
Go for public interest,
not what feels good
McLEAN, Va. - Should the Stansfield Turner, former di-
government have settled its es- rector of central intelligence,
pionage charges against John wrote Secrecy and Democra-
and Michael Walker with a cy: The CIA in Transition.
plea bargain rather than a con-
viction? The benefit of the plea er public psychic satisfaction
bargain is that John Walker when criminals do not receive
has promised to talk. The value the punishment they deserve.
of this lies in four areas: ^ And, closely related, some
^ Walker's testimony will would contend that leniency in
help the government convict this case simply reinforces a
the sole remaining accused ac- widespread tendency to lenien-
complice who has not yet come
to trial, Jerry Whitworth.
^ Not having to take these
two Walkers through the court
process reduces the risk of hav-
ing to disclose more secrets in
order to gain a conviction.
^ Walker's description of his
contacts with Soviet intelli-
gence from beginning to end
can be valuable in helping de-
feat Soviet spying in the future.
^ Knowing in some detail
just what information this spy
ring gave away will help assess
where we stand.
In all four areas, much will
depend on how clean Walker
comes and how good his mem-
ory is. Our people will attempt
to corroborate what he says
through informers, defectors,
and all manner of intelligence
techniques. Walker knows that
if he does not measure up well,
that word will get to his and his
son's parole boards.
On the other side, there are
three disadvantages:
^ The deterrent impact on
others not to follow in Walker's
footsteps is lessened by the evi-
dence that, in even as traitor-
ous a business as spying against
your country, the government
may accede to giving less than
maximum punishment.
^ There will also be the less-
cy in our entire judicial system.
The arguments on both sides
are reasonable ones. In my
view, the scale tilts markedly
on the side of the plea bargain.
The potential gains for our
intelligence outweigh the add-
ed deterrent from giving long-
er sentences. The possibility of
a minimum of eight to 10 years
in jail before parole must be a
considerable deterrent, and
the Walkers have no guarantee
that they will serve only the
minimum time. Any added
protection that our country
could gain for its codes and
submarines outweighs the psy-
chic satisfaction of seeing
more punishment meted out.
And, we should not fall to act in
the country's best interest in
this case because the judicial
system is faulty in others.
Reasonable people will dis-
agree. What is important is that
the citizen make up his mind
based on as objective an evalu-
ation of the pluses and minuses
as possible. There is no fixed
rule that maximum punish-
ment is always the best answer
for our society, even when the
crime is heinous. To reject
what logic tells us is in our best
interest in favor of a purely
emotional response would be
unfortunate, indeed.
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