NEW FOCUS ON SECURITY CITED FOR RASH OF CASES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000100890030-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 20, 2010
• Sequence Number: 30
• Publication Date: November 24, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/20: CIA-RDP90-00552R000100890030-2
WASHINGTON POST
24 Novemuer 195
New Focus on Security
Cited for Rash of Cases
But Experts Say Earlier Detection Needed
By Patrick B. Tyler
Waulmgton Post Staff Writer
It has been an extraordinary year
marked by defections, arrests and
expulsions around the world, with
spies of virtually every nationality
caught in the snares of friendly and
hostile foreign governments, and
the United States has been in the
thick of the action.
A telephone call last May from a
disgruntled ex-wife to the FBI un-
veiled a decade-old spy ring man-
aged by Navy communications spe-
cialist John Anthony Walker Jr. and
riveted national attention on inter-
national espionage.
Since then, it seems, the problem
has only gotten worse, with two
more Americans arrested last week
on espionage charges.
Experts say the rash of spy cases
stems partly from the U.S. intelli-
gence community's increased em-
phasis on security.
But they say the cases also rep-
resent not only a coincidence of ran-
dom events but also a conspicuous
failure of the system to detect ear-
lier persons willing to sell national
secrets at a cost of millions of dol-
lars and, perhaps, human lives.
Roy Godson, an intelligence ex-
pert and professor of government
at Georgetown University, said yes-
terday that based on published ac-
counts of the cases this year, "It
appears there has been very great
damage to our national security
costing the American taxpayers
hundreds of millions of dollars to
repair and possibly having led to the
loss of life and damaging the rep-
utation of American intelligence by
making it more difficult to recruit
and run agents in the future."
Godson said he favors requiring
U.S. foreign service and intelli.
gence officials who have access to
sensitive information to "inform"
the Central Intelligence Agency or
the State Department security of-
fice each time they go abroad or
have contact with foreign officials
whose intelligence services are con-
sidered hostile to U.S. interests.
But there is a flip side to the rev-
elations of espionage in this coun-
try.
"We're getting better fat catch-
ing spies) and people are taking it
seriously," said Sen. Patrick J.
Leahy (D-Vt.), vice chairman of the
Senate Select Committee on Intel-
ligence.
But Leahy said that a number of
changes pending in Congress and
resisted by the Reagan administra-
tion could help prevent future in-
telligence losses.
Leahy made his comments in the
wake of the latest espionage ar-
rests, one of a longtime CIA analyst
accused of selling information to
China and one of a Naval Investi-
gative Service analyst accused of
selling classified information to a
foreign country, which sources say
is believed to be Israel.
In the past, Leahy said, the CIA
and FBI have been "weakened ...
because they wouldn't cooperate" in
espionage cases. "One thing good
that has come out of this rash of spy
cases," he said, "is that the CIA and
FBI are cooperating extremely
well."
Leahy and Sen. William S. Cohen
(R-Maine) have written legislation
that would reduce the number of
foreign intelligence agents in the
United States from Soviet bloc
countries.
Leahy said yesterday that pas-
sage of that legislation would fur-
ther improve the ability of the FBI
and the CIA to detect and monitor
foreign intelligence operatives in
this country.
Leahy also pointed to the passage
in 1982 of the Foreign Missions
Act, which, he said, added helpful
new tools to monitoring foreign na-
tionals, including a coding system
for diplomatic license plates. The
system uses red, white and blue as
well as a two-letter prefix to denote
which country
lomatic vehicle.
The biggest
mains the Wall
passed secret t
munications dat
The arrests
followed by a s
defections in I
Rome, where a senior KGB official,
Vitaly Yurchenko, walked into the
U.S. Embassy.
Yurchenko spent three months
with CIA debriefers before walking
away from CIA custody. He resur-
faced in the Soviet Embassy com-
pound earlier this month to accuse
the CIA of kidnaping and drugging
him. The CIA repeatedly denied the
allegations.
Had it not been for Yurchenko's
defection, which now is being an-
alyzed to determine whether it was
genuine, U.S. intelligence might
never have discovered that former
CIA agent Edward L. Howard-
drummed out of the clandestine
service for his occasional drug
use-had traveled secretly to Vi-
enna in late 1984 to meet with sen-
ior KGB officials and agree to sell
them secrets about how the CIA
conducts spy operations in Moscow.
And after they heard about How-
ard's alleged spying, U.S. intelli-
gence officials learned that How-
ard's disclosures to the KGB may
have caused the arrest and disap-
pearance of a longtime CIA "asset"
in Moscow, an aviation researcher
identified as A.G. Tolkachev.
Not only had the CIA never de-
tected Howard's spying after he left
the agency in 1983, the FBI's sur-
veillance of Howard's New Mexico
home failed to stop Howard's flight
in late September when-based on
Yurchenko's information-FBI of-
ficials obtained an arrest warrant
for him.
All of these cases have had an
impact on U.S. intelligence agen-
cies.
Navy Capt. Brent Baker said yes-
terday that the revelations about
the Walker case "sensitized" Navy
officials to security requirements.
STAT
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/20: CIA-RDP90-00552R000100890030-2