MEXICO CITY DEPICTED AS A SOVIET SPIES HAVEN

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000200810043-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 24, 2012
• Sequence Number: 43
• Publication Date: June 23, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

A
D Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/24 CIA-RDP90-00965R000200810043-7
ARTICLE APPEARED
NEW YORK TIMES
23 June 1985
Mexico City Depicted as a Soviet Spies av
The following article is based o1.1 re- here declined to be interviewed for this
porting by Robert Lindsey and Joel article.
Brinkley and was written by Mr. :Brink- Mexican Government officials de-
ley. clined to offer official comment on
Special to The Now Yak Timy
MEXICO CITY, June 21 American
officials say the Soviet Embassy here
is increasingly being used to mount es-
pionage operations against the United
States and that it has become a major
conduit for the illegal diversion of ad-
vanced technology to the Communist
world.
Soviet intelligence officers "in es-
sence have a safe haven here," John
Gavin, the United States Ambassador
to Mexico, said this week-
A senior Mexican Government offi-
cial acknowledged that there were es-
pionage operations in Mexico City, but
he defended Mexico's policy of permit-
ting one of the largest overseas contin-
gents of the Soviet intelligence and in-
ternal security agency, the K.G.B., to
operate here with virtual impunity.
Mexico -an open Country'
questions concerning the Soviet pres-
ence here, although others were willing
to discuss the matter if their names
were not used.
United States counterintelligence
specialists estimate that at least 150
?K:G.B. officers are working out of the
..Embassy under cover as diplomats,
_.clerks, chauffeurs, journalists and in
other jobs.
Agents Teddeally Trained
i ?
Increasingly, these specialists say,
.the K.G.B. officers assigned to Mexico
City have technical training so they can
manage Soviet efforts to steal Amer-
ican military and industrial secrets,
using not only American agents but
also what Mr. Gavin called "dummy
companies" set up in Mexico to buy ad-
vanced American technology and then
conceal its ultimate destination: the
Soviet Union or- other Soviet bloc na-
Mexico, he said, is "an open coun- As the United States begins trying to
try" and any country is allowed to have improve its counterespionage capabil-
as many diplomats stationed in Mexico ities in reaction to the Walker family
city as it chooses. spy case, many American officials say
they can not fully contain the problem
New attention has been focused on
Mexico City as a result of the arrest of
John A. Walker Jr., who is accused of
running an extensive spy ring for the
Soviet Union.
Agents searching Mr. Walker's home
in Norfolk, Va., found receipts from a
trip he apparently made to Mexico in
1975, and a senior American official
said the Central Intelligence A en
and the Federal Bureau of Invest .i a-
uon were trying to determine what role
the m Y might have p ayed
in Mr. Walker's activities.
far, the o cial sal , agents have
found nothing conclusive. But they
know that numerous Americans ac-
cused of spying for the Russians have
acknowledged using the Soviet Em-
bassy here to meet their Soviet con-
tacts.
Diplomats at the Soviet Embassy
as long as the Soviet Union maintains a
large, unrestricted espionage opera-
tion in Mexico City, less than 700 miles
from the United States.
American and Mexican officials say
the Mexican Government allows Soviet
agents to work here virtually without
restraint as long as their target is the
United States, not Mexico.
Soviet secret agents have been active
ip Mexico for much of this century. In
1810 Soviet assassins murdered Leon
{rotsky, who had taken asylum in Mex-
ico City three years earlier.
Today the Soviet Embassy, an im-
posing, wailed complex in the heart of
the city, is watched closely by the Cen-
tral Intelligence Agency and, to some
extent, by the Federal Security Direc-
torate, Mexico's secret police.
Although the C.I.A. maintains a
large station here, a senior American
official said the C.I.A. officers cannot
effectively monitor Soviet activities be.
cause they are far outnumbered by
~ of the K.G.B. and other Eastern
ocnations that maintain embsasiea
here, including Cuba, East Germany.
Bulgaria, Hungary, Rumania, Poland
and Czechoslavokia. Intelligence offi-
cers from those countries often work in
concert with the K.G.B.
U.S.-Mexico Cooperatiss i
Under a longstanding cooperative ef-
fort between the United States and
Mexico, the Mexican authorities
record calls to and from the Soviet Em-
hamv. and transcriots of the conversa-,
Lions are given to the C.I.A., according
to sources in the Mexican Government.
But American officials say they can-
not rely entirely on cooperation from
the Mexican authorities. After a recent
scandal involving allegations of brib-
ery and drug dealing in the Federal Se-
curity Directorate, some senior Amer.
Ican officials are worried that the di-
rectorate has been penetrated by chef
K.G.B. A senior Mexican official called
that charge "preposterous."
Mexico has fewer than 30 people sta-
tioned at Its embassy in Moscow. But
the Soviet Embassy here, with more
than 300 people, is one of the largest
Soviet diplomatic missions in the.
world, even though Moscow has few of-
ficial dealings with Mexico.
Less than 1 percent of Mexican ex-
ports are sold to the Soviet Union, and
all the Soviet tourists who visit Mexico.
in a year "would fit in this room,,. Mr.
Gavin said in an interview in his office.
A senior official of the Mexican In-'
tenor Ministry, asked why he thought
so many Russians were stationed here,
answered simply, "Our neighbor."
Russians Trained in Englbh
Most Soviet officials sent here arrive'
with more training in English than
Spanisk and as they serve here, "their
English improves while their Spanish
does not," said David A. Phillips, a for-
mer C.I.A. officer who was stationed
here and later served as head of the
agency's Latin America division.
The Soviet officers "aren't interested
at all in Mexico; they're interested in
the U.S.," said Melvin Beck, another
former C.I.A. officer who spent five
years working undercover in Mexico
c A senior Mexican Government offi-
cial said that most if not all of the 10 or
so Soviet journalists working hoe are
K.G.B. agents, and Ambassador Gavin
agreed. The Mexican official said the
Soviet journalists never attended press
conferences or called the Government
for information.
A few years ago the Soviet Govern.
ment asked permission to build several
new consulates along the Mexico-
United States border, a request the
Mexican Government denied after the
United States "expressed the view that
it wouldn't be helpful to us," a senior
American State Department official
said.
The Mexicans did allow Moscow to
build a consulate in Veracruz, a major
port on Mexico's Gulf Coast. And now,
American officials here say, the United
CGnrI'wwe,1
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/24 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000200810043-7
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/24: CIA-RDP90-00965R000200810043-7
r
States might have to open a consulate
I in Veracruz, too, because of the in-
creased K.G.B. activity there.
Over the last several years numer-
ous Americans accused of spying for
the Soviet Union have admitted that
they used the Soviet Embassy here to
meet their Soviet contacts. Among
them are these:
9James D. Harper Jr., sentenced to
life in prison for espionage last year,
sold numerous documents detailing
classified research on the Minuteman
intercontinental ballistic missile to
Polish agents he met here and in other
Mexican cities, among other places.
9Joseph G. Helmich Jr., who
pleaded guilty to conspiring to all mili-
tary secrets to the Soviet Union in 1981,
passed sensitive military communica-
tions data to Soviet agents he met in
Mexico and Paris.
9Christopher J. Boyce and Andrew
Daulton Lee admitted in 1977 that they
had sold thousands of documents per-
taming to secret American surveil-
lance satellites to K.G.B. agents at the
embassy here over nearly two years.
United States officials said the K.G.B.
sent a specially trained agent, Boris
Skaggs, to assess the technical docu-
ments Mr. Lee sold him.
Walker Tied to Embassy
Federal officials are also saying that
Mr. Walker, the former Navy officer,
apparently met with his Soviet coo-
tacts here, too. In searching Mr. Walk-
er's home, Federal agents said they
found a copy of a book about Mr. Boyce
and Mr. Lee, "The Falcon and the
Snowman." Officials said a bookmark
had been placed between two pages
that describe a 1975 meeting in Mexico
City between a Soviet diplomat and one
of the Californians. That meeting came
seven days after the date reportedly
stamped on Mr. Walker's receipts.
"We've gotten to the point where
there have now been so many docu-
mented cases that there can be no
doubt that the Soviets we Mexico as the
place for international espionage, ' Mr.
Phillips said. "As much as any place in
the world it has access, cover - all the
basic things you need."
Officials said Ambassador Gavin had
discussed the espionage problem more
than once with William J. Casey, Di-
rector of Central Intelligence.
A former senior C.I.A. official said,
"There has been a lot of dialogue an
this through various Administrations."
But Mr. Gavin and others said the Rea-
gan Administration has several new
concerns.
Foremost among them, Mr. Gavin
said, is that Soviet agents have begun
using their embassy here for smug-
gling advanced American technology
to the Soviet Union.
Using Cuban agents in some cases,
Mr. Gavin said, the Soviet Union has,
set up "dummy companies, an ex-
tremely clever and useful tool" for pur-,
chasing American computers, micro-'
chips and other items for illegal reship-
ment to the Soviet Union.
Two years ago the United States Cus-
toms Service said it seized a multispec-
tral scanner, a device used in making
highly refined images of the earth from
satellites, being smuggled to the Soviet
Union through Mexico City.
in addition, American intelligence
officials say "illegal" Soviet agents.
spies who slip into the United States un
noticed and live as if they were Amer-
ican citizens, use the embassy here as a
refuge and transit point.
American intelligence officials say
K.G B. officers stationed here also try
to recruit American diplomats, resi-
dents and visitors as Soviet spies.
In one example, a former C.I.A. sta-
tion chief in Mexico City recalled that
several years ago the C.I.A. asked the
United States Marines stationed here
to end their Friday night parties at a
local bar because several K.G.B.
agents began showing up every week,
trying to overhear the Marines' conver-
sations and recruit them as spies.
The C.I.A. has mounted numerous
counterintelligence operations against
the K.G.B. here, often with some help
from Mexican security forces.
Once it managed to plant listening
devices in the K.G.B. station chiefs
apartment for a year, a former C.I.A.
official said. On another occasion a
C.I.A.-agent hired a Mexican prosti-
tute, hoping she could be used to com-
promise a Soviet Embassy communi-
cations clerk. It is unclear what re-
sulted from the latter effort.
The C.I.A. has tapped the embassy's
phone lines, photographed people en-
tering and leaving it, paid travel agents
to report Soviet diplomats' travel
schedules, interviewed the Russians'
doctors and dentists, and at one point
several years ago the agency paid de?
livery boys to report on what they saw
while bringing supplies to the embassy,
intelligence sources said.
Despite all that and more, "It is im-
possible to have blanket coverage of
what goes on in that embassy," Mr.
Beck said.
Effectiveness Questioned
American spies traveling here to
Mr. Lee, the American convicted of
selling satellite secrets, admitted en-
tering the embassy several times In
daylight. But Federal prosecutors said
no United States agents had identified
him until he was arrested by the Mexi-
can authorities on another charge.
Mr. Beck said the listening devices
planted in the apartment of the K.G.B.
station chief produced little if any use-
ful informaion; C.I.A. officials learned
how Russians "toilet-train their chil-
dren" along with other details of their
personal lives, he said.
But the fundamental problem, Amer-
ican officials say, is the Mexican ac-
quiescence in the Soviet spying.
A senior Mexican Government offi-
cial acknowldged that his Government
does "tolerate" the Soviet spying, al-
though "we don't condone it."
The Interior Ministry official said,
"We have a very clear idea of what our
long-range strategic interests are, and
they are not with the Soviet Union." At
the same time, however, Mexican and
American officials say anti-American-
ism is such a central part of Mexican
political fife that the Mexicans tolerate
the Soviet espionage precisely because
it irritates the United States.
Mexico has long had cordial relations
with the Soviet Union. Last fall Mexico
and the Soviet Union celebrated the
80th year of diplomatic relations. Mex-
ico even printed a commemorative
stamp.
The use of Mexico as an intelligence
base has a long history, too. Mr. Phil-
lips noted that the Soviet Union's first
ambassador to Mexico in the 1920's was
"Russia's chief officer in charge of in-
telligence."
Mexican and American officials also
said the Mexican Government now be-
lieves that because Mexico tolerates
the large Soviet and Cuban presence,
the Communist countries will not inter-
Jere in Mexican affairs.
American officials say Mexico could
ask the Soviet Union to maintain an
embassy no larger than is actually
needed for Its diplomatic mission in
meet their Soviet contacts stand "little
if any chance of being caught," a senior
F.B.I. official acknowledged in recent
Congressional testimony.
One reason is that the C.I.A.'s coun-
terintelligence tactics have not always
been effective here, several officials
said.
For many years the agency photo-
graphed everyone coming and going at
the Soviet Embassy, hoping to spot
American spies. The agency photo-
graphed Lee Harvey Oswald entering
the embassy in 1963, a few weeks be-
fore the assassination of President
Kennedy.
The photography was limited in the
Carter Administration, intelligence
sources said. It is unclear whether it
has been resumed now, but this week
the managers of several buildings sur.
rounding the embassy said Soviet offi-
cers had asked them not to allow
photographers in.
Mexico.
But the United States has never
asked the Mexicans to order the Soviet
Union to reduce its embassy staff here,
and Helms, former Director of Central
Intelligence, said that would be coun-
terproductive because "the Soviets
would then ask the Mexicans to order
us to reduce the size of our embassy,
and you'd just end up with hash."
Protests by Mexico Feared
one reason the Central Intelligence
Agency does not substantially increase
its staff here is fear that the Mexicans
might protest, a senior American offi-
cial said.
In part because of the shortage of
American intelligence officers here,
....t~p~ great officers stationed at the United States
use of was so it was
impossible to analyze all of them. And , Embassy to help track Soviet agents by
Mr. Phillips said it was "possible but
not likely" that the C.I.A. could iden-
tify Americans working for the Soviets
if they were photographed entering the
embassy.
automobile with a diplomatic license
plate bearing the prefix "DC," identi-
fying it as a Soviet Embassy vehicle.
But in the end, several American of-
ficials said, they did not expect the
Soviet Union to reduce its espionage ac-
tivities here any time soon.
"Until the Mexicans feel threatened"
by the Soviet Union, one senior Amer-
ican official said, there is little chance
"that the problem will be lessened."
A.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/24: CIA-RDP90-00965R000200810043-7