ACCUSED SPY MAY HAVE HURT NATO

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00806R000200710036-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 5, 2010
• Sequence Number: 36
• Publication Date: October 25, 1982
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/05: CIA-RDP90-00806R000200710036-2
THE WASHINGTON POST
25 October 1982
Accused Spy May Have Hurt NATO S TAT
By Thomas O'Toole.
WaahUSgWn Post Staff Writer
A man accused by Britain in July
of spying for the Soviet Union for
nine years may have done more
damage to western intelligence than
any Russian operative since H.A.R.
(Kim) Philby defected to Moscow in
1963, U.S. intelligence sources said
yesterday.
Geoffrey Arthur Prime, 44, a
translator of coded Russian radio
traffic at Britain's top-secret elec-
tronics communications center at
Cheltenham in western England, is
believed to have compromised North
Atlantic Treaty Organization code-
breaking and secret-gathering tech-
niques, the sources said.
He is also thought to have told
the Soviets the locations of all Brit-
ish and U.S. nuclear warheads and
the day-by-day armed readiness of
every division deployed throughout
the 13 NATO countries of western
Europe, Turkey and Greece, the
sources said.
"Prime had from 1968 to 1977 the
highest secret clearance in NATO, a
clearance called `Cosmic,' " one U.S.
intelligence official said yesterday.
"He had access to as many top se-
crets as anybody in NATO." Ar-
rested in July on espionage charges
that -a British prosecutor described
as being "of the gravest possible na-
ture," Prime is expected to stand
trial late next month.
Details of his arrest have not been
revealed in Great Britain because of
restrictions imposed by Britain's Of-
ficial Secrets Act, but The New York
Times reported yesterday on the
charges expected to be placed
against Prime when he stands trial.
"What we are concerned about is.
whether or not our national security
is at risk." Labor Party member of
Parliament Ted Leadbitter said yes-
terday in London. He urged Prime
Minister Margaret Thatcher to tell
Parliament how Prime was able to
use the top-secret electronics center
at Cheltenham for one of the deep-
est-known penetrations of western
intelligence since Philby's work for
the Soviets during and after World
War II.
Like most Britons, Leadbitter
learned details of the charges against
Prime from The New York Times
report. Not only - does the Official
Secrets Act prohibit publication of
details on espionage cases, but Brit-
ish law also forbids disclosure of de-
tails about criminal cases not yet
brought to trial.
Prime was first arrested on an
unrelated charge of molesting chil-
dren, then arraigned on the es-
pionage charge. Washington Post
correspondent Peter Osnos reported
yesterday from London that British
prosecutors hoped they might avoid.
a spy trial by getting Prime. to plead
guilty to the sex charge. But that has
not been resolved, Osnos reported.
The Cheltenham communications
center where Prime worked is oper-
ated by Britain's Government Com-
munication Headquarters and the
U.S. National Security Agency..Chel-
tenham is the British equivalent of
NSA's top-secret code-breaking and
electronic information-gathering
nerve center at Fort Meade.
Prime is said to have had access
to tape recordings and transcripts of
all intercepted Soviet telephone,
radio and satellite communications,
intelligence sources reported.
With such access, Prime would 'i
have been able to tell the Soviets
which of their codes had been bro-
ken, how they were broken and by
whom they were broken, the sources
said. He also is thought'to have fed
false information about Soviet codes
to British and American code-
breakers, which deceived western
intelligence experts between 1968
and 1977 but also led to his arrest
on espionage charges, the sources
said.
The sources would not describe
how Prime gained such access and
the events leading to his arrest.
At the time of his arrest, sources
said, Britain and the United States,
were forced to change many of their,
secret codes overnight at. great ex-
pense to both nations.
One U.S. intelligence source said
Prime fed the Soviets what NATO
officials call the "red-line numbers"
of NATO military strength: what
equipment was ready and on-line
and what equipment was off-line
,being repaired or replaced..
"He also identified clandestine
NATO agents to the.Russians," one
source disclosed. "He was also telling
them which of our people had access
to their secret information. That was
extremely damaging for a while, be-
lieve me." , %
It is not clear -wh ether such dis-
closures led to the arrest of any
agents.
-Prime also is believed to have in-
formed the Soviets of the NATO
"force structure" throughout western
Europe: which divisions carried nu-
clear warheads, which divisions were
protected against. gas attack and
which on-line divisions were under
or at strength, the sources said.
The New York Times said Prime
.had been recruited by the Soviets in
the early .1960s, when he was sta-
tioned with the Royal Air Force in
West Berlin. One intelligence source
told The Washington Post that
Prime waa' a "committed" Soviet
agent, spying for the Soviets for
ideological reasons.
Philby was recruited as a Soviet
spy in 1933 and served as a clandes-
tine agent in British intelligence and
as a security liaison officer in the
United States.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/05: CIA-RDP90-00806R000200710036-2