SOVIETS TRACK AMERICANS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01070R000301840003-1
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 11, 2010
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: August 21, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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RADIO TV REPORTS, INC.
4701 WILLARD AVENUE, CHEVY CHASE, MARYLAND 20815 [phone]
ABC World News Tonight STATION WJLA TV
ABC Network
DATE August 21, 1985 7:00 PM CITY Washington, DC
TED KOPPEL: Nitrophenyl pentodianel (?) is not the sort
of chemical you would keep in your medicine cabinet. Indeed, the
very fact that NPPD, as it's called, is capable of causing
genetic mutations, maybe even cancer, is at the center of a hot
new dispute between Washington and Moscow.
We have a series of reports, beginning with our
correspondent in Moscow, Walter Rodgers.
WALTER RODGERS: U.S. citizens living in Moscow were
summoned to the American Ambassador's residence tonight to be
told they may have been contaminated with a potentially dangerous
chemical substance used by the KGB, the Soviet secret police, to
keep track of their whereabouts and their contacts in the Soviet
Union. The State Department in Washington made this announcement:
CHARLES REDMAN: The substances in question, which have
been applied indirectly to embassy personnel, leave deposits on
the person or possessions of people with whom they have had
contact. The United States deplores the Soviet Union's use of
chemical substances against its diplomatic representatives in the
U.S.S.R. We have protested the practice in the strongest terms
and demanded that it be terminated immediately.
RODGERS: Anxious Americans who still are not sure of
the extent to which they may have been contaminated or how to
avoid future contamination reacted with fear and anger over the
paucity of information they were given by U.S. officials.
JANE THATCHER: I don't feel reassured. No. I feel
very puzzled and more fearful than I did when I came here.
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STEVEN STRASSER: That was a dishonest briefing. They
called us to warn us about this carcinogen floating around in the
atmosphere, and they don't tell us where they found it.
RODGERS: The American Embassy here has obviously been
the center of the KGB's chemical dusting, and several U.S.
diplomats have been affected, although none is reported ill.
American officials here have tried to downplay the
health hazards posed by the chemical NPPD. Although so little is
known about it, they were not very reassuring. And a team of
doctors is flying in from the United States to test the degree of
contamination of American diplomats, businessmen, journalists,
and their families.
JOHN MCWETHY: This is John McWethy in Washington.
U.S. officials describe the chemical agent NPPD as a
clear powder, similar in appearance to this face powder, but
stickier. And when rubbed into the skin, it becomes invisible.
They suspect it was most commonly applied as an aerosol.
Intelligence officials say the powder was frequently
detected in cars used by embassy personnel in Moscow in places
where it might rub off on the hands: on the door handle, the
steering wheel, the gearshift lever. And once on the hands, it
would rub off on everything and everyone touched, leaving a
chemical trail for the KGB to follow.
Intelligence analysts say such chemicals are being used
to finger Soviets who meet clandestinely with American diplomats
gathering intelligence. The diplomats most frequently targeted
were those fluent in Russian, those most likely to be American
spies.
WILLIAM COLBY: The Soviets are going to use every
gadget they can think of to follow people in our embassy.
They're paranoid about the possibility of penetration into their
society from the outside.
MCWETHY: Both the CIA and FBI also use chemical
tracking agents, but officials claim not any that are health
hazards, and never on diplomats.
Law enforcement people, for example, commonly mark money
with chemicals that can be detected with ultraviolet light,
chemicals that rub off on the hands of those who handle the cash.
State Department officials say the Soviets used NPPD
sporadically during the 1970s, then stopped all use in 1982. In
the meantime, laboratory tests in the U.S. showed the chemical
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might pose a health hazard.
In the last four months, the Soviets began using it
again, this time heavily.
This is not the first time those who work in the
American Embassy in Moscow have been subjected to potential
health hazards courtesy of the KGB. Soviet microwave radiation
has bombarded the embassy for years, with uncertain health
effects.
MALCOLM TOON: They're behaving just as they always
have, in a very nasty and unpleasant way.
REP. DAN MICA: I think we may have to consider closing
embassies in all the East Bloc countries if we don't get some
answers.
MCWETHY: At the Soviet Embassy in Washington today
there was an answer to one question, "Did you do it?"
IGOR BUGAY: No. It's nonsense.
REPORTER: It's nonsense?
BUGAY: Yeah, it is.
MCWETHY: As far as American officials are concerned,
there is no doubt the Soviets did do it. What remains in
question is how prominently this will figure in the Reagan-
Gorbachev summit in November; and, more importantly, how serious
the health side effects might be to those who have been exposed.
GEORGE STRAIT: Chemically, NPPD is an imposing
compound.
It's been used as an industrial dye. It can irritate and
discolor the skin and cause nausea. There's no proof that it can
penetrate the skin and cause cancer or birth defects, but
independent chemists aren't sure and are split on the potential
health hazards of NPPD.
DR. JOHN AMBRE: In small amounts, it probably wouldn't
produce any noticeable effects at all.
DR. EUGENE ASHBY: It's a potential carcinogen, in that
a person absorbing enough of it could contract a cancer.
STRAIT: Similar to but not the same substance as this
commercially produced identification ink, NPPD is light-
sensitive. It will glow when ultraviolet light is shined on it.
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DR. ASHBY: And that's why that's a good tracking agent,
because it has the chemical characteristics that can be observed
in very small concentration.
STRAIT: Experience with NPPD in this country is
limited. It's currently being studied at the National Institutes
of Health. Researchers predict no health problems short-term.
But long-term, experts worry that U.S. citizens and diplomats
will find out that their jobs in the Soviet Union are more
hazardous than they imagined.
KOPPEL: Joining us here tonight in Washington, Walter
Stoessel, a former U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union.
charge?
Ambassador Stoessel, why go public with this kind of a
WALTER STOESSEL: Well, I think there comes a point when
we have to inform our people in Moscow, in the embassy, and also
American residents living there, that there is this potential
danger. And once you do that, the news goes out. So I think
this was the reason for the timing.
KOPPEL: To what degree does this kind of thing natural-
ly take place between governments like the United States and the
Soviet Union?
STOESSEL: Well, I don't think there's anything natural
about it, particularly this particular substance. Of course,
surveillance goes on, tapping of phones, that sort of thing.
That's sort of accepted. But I think what the Soviets have done
here, as they did in the case of the microwaves, shows a dis-
regard of the potential health hazards of the materials they are
using.
KOPPEL: All right, a final question, then. To what
degree, then, can this sort of thing actually have an effect on
policy? We do have that big summit coming up in just a few
months.
STOESSEL: Well, I think it certainly can influence the
tone of the discussion, the atmosphere. I would think this would
be raised at meetings with the Soviets. We have protested. We
want it to stop. We hope it will be stopped.
This, however, does not mean that the summit should not
go on. We're very serious about that and still hope for a
constructive result.
KOPPEL: Ambassador Stoessel, thank you.
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