TRIAL STARTS FOR EX-ARMY OFFICIAL ACCUSED AS SPY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000606240010-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 27, 2010
• Sequence Number: 10
• Publication Date: April 8, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/27: CIA-RDP90-00552R000606240010-4
O 11,LL
NEW YORK TIMES
ON PAGE
6 April 1986
Trial Starts for Ex-Army Official Accused as Spy
By SARA RIMER
Special to The New York Times
ALEXANDRIA, Va., April 7 - Fed-
eral prosecutors today portrayed a for-
mer Army counterintelligence agent,
accused of spying for the Soviet Union,
as a failed businessman who sold clas-
sified information to a Soviet official to
help pay off his personal debts.
But as the trial opened in Federal
District Court here, the former agent's
lawyer, A. Brent Carruth, argued that
his client, Richard Craig Smith, was a
loyal American working for the Central
Intelligence Agency. Mr. Carruth said
Mr. Smith's strained financial circum.
stances were part of an elaborate cover
devised for him by men he believed t
be agency officers who were master-
minding a plan to infiltrate Soviet intel
ligence operations.
Assistant United States Attorney Jo-
seph Aronica, said Mr. Smith was paid
$11,000 for the information in install-
ments of $5,000 and $6,000 and was
promised another $100,000 to $150,000 if
he turned over additional information
to the K.G.B., the Soviet intelligent
agency.
"It was a straight trade - money for
information," Mr. Aronica said.
He said that in three meetings with a
K.G.B. officer, Victor I. Okunev, in
Tokyo, Mr. Smith disclosed the identi.
ties of six United States double agents
along with information about several
covert operations.
Filed for Bankruptcy
42 years old, had met with Mr. Okunev,
then a first secretary in the Soviet Em-
bassy in Tokyo, in his successful efforts
to infiltrate the K.G.B. He said Mr.
Smith had given Mr. Okunev what h
knew to be useless information.
"He roped in a big one for the benefit
of the United States," Mr. Carruth
said. "And he gave up chicken feed."
Arrested in 1984
Mr. Smith was arrested at Dulles In-
ternational Airport in Washington in
April 1984 and charged with conspiracy
and with disclosing the identities of s'
double agents and classified informa-
tion. He denies all the charges. If con-
victed, he could be sentenced to life in
prison.
Mr. Smith said he had gone to the
Federal Bureau of Investigation in
1983, for reasons in dispute between
"Is this man a spy?" Mr.' Carruth
asked in his opening arguments. "Yes
- for the United States of America,
and he has been for several years." He
said Mr. Smith, who had owned a video
company in Utah, had filed for per-;
sonal and corporate bankruptcy in 1982
and 1983 to help persuade the K.G.B.
that he was a debt-ridden businessman
desperate enough to sell out his count
for cash.
Mr. Carruth said Mr. Smith, who is
Federal prosecutors and the defense
lawyer. Mr. Carruth said his client con-
tacted the officials of the bureau after
he was suddenly cut off by his superiors
at the C.I.A.
Mr. Carruth argued that Mr. Smith
was the innocent victim of renegade
agents of the intelligence agency who
were bilking an investment concern in
Hawaii that had been set up as a C.I.A.
cover.
The prosecutors said Mr. Smith went
to the bureau and told them of his meet-
ings with Mr. Okunev because he be-
lieved he had been detected.
Among the witnesses for the prosecu-
tion today were the former F.B.I.
agents who met with Mr. Smith. The,
agents said Mr. Smith told them he had
given Mr. Okunev a business card and
not much else, and had received $11,000
in return.
"I told him I didn't believe it." said
one of the agents, Richard W. Smith. "I
told him it was ridiculous. He said,
'Trust me, Rick, I wouldn't lie tol
you., 11
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/27: CIA-RDP90-00552R000606240010-4