DEPARTING U.S. ENVOY CRITICIZES USE OF YOUNG MARINE GUARDS IN MOSCOW

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000201820016-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 20, 2012
• Sequence Number: 16
• Publication Date: March 31, 1987
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

' Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000201820016-5
ARTICLE APP RED
ON PAGE NEW YORK TIMES
31 March 1987
Departing U.S. Envoy Criticizes Use
Of Young Marine Guards in Moscow
By STEPHEN ENGELBERG
Special to The New York Times
WASHINGTON, March 30 - Arthur
A. Hartman, the departing Ambassa-
dor to the Soviet Union, said today that
he believed the young, single Marine
guards at the embassy in Moscow
should be replaced by a more mature
force less susceptible to temptation.
His comments came as the State De-
partment and the Marine Corps an-
nounced that all 28 marines at the em-
bassy were being recalled.
The State Department said that the
move was "precautionary" and that
none of the marines now in Moscow
had been implicated in the espionage
cases against Sgt. Clayton J. Lonetree
and Cpl. Arnold Bracy.
Mr. Hartman, who was Ambassador
from 1981 until this month, said in an
interview that he had no idea about the
latest cases of Marine fraternization
with Soviet women.
Receptionist for Hartman
One of the women worked for a time
as a receptionist in Spaso House, the
Ambassador's residence, and met with
one of the Marine guards charged with
espionage at two embassy social func-
tions - a dance and a Marine party.
Ambassador Hartman said that
these were clear violations of regula-
tions against social contacts and that
"if I had known, that would have been
grounds to send them out of town im-
mediately."
A State Department spokesman,
speaking of the recall of the present
Marine guards, said the move would
aid the various investigations of the
possible security breach. They will be
replaced with guards from other Ma-
rine posts and from the training com-
mand in Quantico, Va.
Embassy Accused on Security
As measures were taken to deal with
the spying case, Administration and
Congressional officials said the em-
bassy in Moscow had been slow to re-
spond to warnings that it was vulner-
able. One official today described it as
"porous."
Ambassador Hartman said the em-
bassy had been vigilant about security.
"But something bad has happened
here and we have got to find out what
happened," he said.
He said he had raised questions
about some security recommendations
because of their effect on the function-
ing of the embassy.
Mr. Hartman said the embassy had
g ards'sbeing had roblems Marine
involved in b lack market
currency dealings and rowdy parties.
Several had been ordered to leave the
Soviet Union for fraternizing with
Soviet women.
"We have had problems with the Ma-
rine guards for some time, though not
of this nature," he said. "I have been
saying we ought to look for alterna-
tives. They are not suited to Moscow
because they are young and single."
Several officials disputed Mr. Hart-
man's characterization of the embas-
sy's attitude toward security. One said
the problems had been identified in
The present crew
in Moscow is
being is recalled
as a precaution.
several reports, including a 1985 study,
by a State Department advisory com-
mission that attributed significant in-
telligence breaches to the employment
of Soviet nationals at the embassy.
The report prompted Secretary of
State George P. Shultz to approve a
plan to replace the Soviet employees,
but before the plan could be carried
out, the Soviet Government last Octo-
ber ordered all Soviet workers to leave
employment in the United States Em-
bassy.
These officials said they were
shocked to learn that despite all the re-
ports on security, the Marine guards in
Moscow last year were violating one of
the most basic regulations: a ban on
social contacts with Soviet citizens.
One of the Marine guards accused of
spying, Sgt. Clayton J. Lonetree, told
investigators that Violetta Seina, the
woman with whom he had an affair and
who introduced him to Soviet agents,
had attended at a Marine ball. In an-
other instance, Sergeant Lonetree said,
a Marine guard invited several Soviet
employees of the embassy to a Marine
party.
A Congressional aide who has stud-
ied security problems at the Moscow
embassy said: "That is absurd. There
is an absolute rule against fraterniza-
tion."
Two other Congressional aides said
the State Department had been "unen-
thusiastic" in its response to studies of
security problems at the embassy.
They said that diplomats had told Con-
gressional investigators that they as-
sumed the Soviet Union eavesdropped
routinely on them.
"There is a pervasive environment
there," one aide said.
The 1985 report, by the State Depart-
ment's Advisory Panel on Overseas Se-
curity, called for the creation of
"boards of inquiry" that Would investi-
gate security breaches. The recom-
mendation was never followed, offi-
cials said.
A June 1986 report by the Congres-
sional watchdog agency, the General
Accounting Office, said that the State
Department's efforts to secure embas-
sies against terrorism had resulted in
some improvements, but that there
were still shortcomings.
A State Department spokeswoman,
Phyllis Oakley, said today that security
arrangements in Moscow were now
being reviewed.
Embassy Penetrated In the Past
The embassy in Moscow has been re-
peatedly penetrated by Soviet intelli
gence. According to officials, the 1985
advisory commission, headed by Adm.
Bobby R. Inman, found that the embas-
sy's cars carried electronic listening
devices planted by Soviet agents. In a
more serious breach, embassy type-
writers were subjected to surveillance.
"For years, the Soviets were reading
some of our most sensitive diplomatic
correspondence, economic and politi-
cal analyses, and other communica-
tions," said a 1986 report on counterin-
telligence by the Senate Select Com-
mittee on Intelligence. One of the type-
writers involved, an official said, was
used by the secretary to the deputy
chief of mission in Moscow.
Members of Congress, including
Senator Patrick Leahy, Democrat of
Vermont, have said that the State De-
partment last year tried to block legis-
lation that forced reductions in the
number of Soviet nationals employed.
Leahy-Cohen Bill Recalled
One intelligence official said the mat-
ter had been the subject of a debate be-
tween security agencies, which said the
Soviet nationals were a threat, and the
State Department, which argued they
were not.
A bill to cut the numbers of Soviet
diplomats in the United States and the
number of Soviet nationals employed
in Moscow was introduced last year by
Senators Leahy and William Cohen, the
Maine Republican who is now vice
chairman of the intelligence commit-~
tee.
The bill was endorsed by President'
Reagan in a radio address in June 19861
and passed the Congress shortly after-
ward. But in July, when the law
reached a House-Senate conference'
committee, the State Department sent
a letter once again registering opposi-
tion. To defeat this tactic, Senator
Leahy circulated copies of Mr. Rea-'
gan's radio address to members of the
conference committee.
Later in 1986, after the Admnistra
tion expelled 25 Soviet diplomats, Mos-
cow responded by removing all Soviet
employees from the American Embas-
sy.
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ARTICLE APPEARED
ON PAC
WALL STREET JOURNAL
31 March 1987
The Intelligence Mystique
Z By ARTHUR SCHLESINGER JR.
The mystique of the secret intelligence
services has long held the world in thrall.
Ever since William Le Queux and E. Phil-
lips Oppenheim wrote their tales about
British secret agents saving the Empire
from the Kaiser before World War I, we
have all rejoiced in the melodrama of spy
and counterspy. Le Queux's fantasies actu-
ally led on to the establishment in 1909 of
the modern British services. Two world
wars nourished the mystique, and the Cold
War has given intelligence agencies in ev-
ery major country unprecedented status,
money and power.
It is easy to understand the mystique's
appeal. There is something inherently fas-
cinating about stories of daring, intrigue,
deception, clandestineness and unsung her-
oism. From the gritty realism of John Le
Carre to the glamorous romanticism of Ian
Fleming, the spy story has diverted our
minds and, it cannot be denied, addled our
brains. For fascination with the mystique
becomes dangerous when governments
succumb to the belief-sedulously encour-
aged by all intelligence agencies-that co-
vert methods provide a cheap way to for-
eign-policy successes.
Nations that fear their world power is
slipping away place, in Mr. Le Carre's
words, "ever greater trust in the magic
formulae and hocus-pocus of the spy world.
When the king is dying, the charlatans
dash in."
More Trouble Than They're Worth?
Now intelligence agencies obviously
have their necessary role amid the anar-
chy of states. No power in our jungle world
can afford to do without them. But the
mystique magnifies their importance, en-
dows them with superhuman skills and
considerably exaggerates the difference
they make. As the delusion spreads that
the clandestine services alone understand
the true requirements of national security,
as their budgets grow, as their dark deeds
multiply, as their influence swells in the
councils of state, one may begin to wonder
whether the troubles they cause are not
greater than the benefits they bring.
Such thoughts must be much on the
minds of people in Israel these days. For
years the world has been told how marvel-
ous, accurate and efficient the Israeli intel-
ligence service is. But the Pollard affair
finishes that myth. Nor is this an isolated
incident. The British government recently
discovered that Mossad, the Israeli serv-
ice, has been forging British passports for
use by Israeli hit men. Mossad further
enraged the British by kidnapping the Is-
raeli technician who gave the Sunday
Times information about Israel's nuclear-
weapons program.
These are only a few of the scandals
that led Time magazine to conclude that
"Israel's vaunted state-security apparatus
seems to have gone amuck." The conse-
quence of a free rein given to Israeli secret
agents has been, in the name of national
security, to increase Israel's international
insecurity.
Britain, meantime, has been having
troubles with its own intelligence agencies.
Mrs. Thatcher's misbegotten effort to pre-
vent the publication in Australia of a book
by Peter Wright, a former MI-5 officer,
has brought attention to Mr. Wright's ad-
mission that in the 1970s an MI-5 group
was engaged in a campaign to undermine
Harold Wilson's Labor government. When
Mr. Wilson himself claimed some years
been doing, what are we paying them for?
And why should we take seriously what
they tell us about the Russians?
One can continue down the list. The
French secret service sank the blameless
Rainbow Warrior, the Greenpeace anti-nu-
clear protest ship, and thereby embroiled
France in international troubles far
greater than any harm the Rainbow War-
rior could conceivably have done. From
all accounts, Soviet General Secretary
Mikhail Gorbachev is having his own prob-
lems with the KGB.
Intelligence agencies, sealed off by
walls of secrecy from the pull and haul of
Board of Contributors
Operatives begin to see themselves as the guardians of
the nation, more knowledgeable than elected officials.
ago that MI-5 operatives had been doing
this, people talked sadly about poor Har-
old's paranoia.
There can be no doubt now that he was
right. The MI-5 gang got it into its head
that the prime minister might be a Soviet
mole and launched a campaign to drive
him out of Downing Street. We "bugged
and burgled our way round London," Mr.
Wright now says. In addition, MI-5 forged
documents designed to discredit cabinet
ministers.
Mrs. Thatcher thus far has blocked par-
liamentary efforts to establish the details
of this MI-5 effort to destabilize a British
government. "If it was the United States,"
Merlyn Rees, a former home secretary,
told the House of Commons on March 16,
"there would be a proper investigation.
There would be hell to pay."
Indeed, there would. If a CIA group had
been exposed as trying to smear and over-
throw an American administration, one
can imagine the outcry in Congress. There
are advantages to the separation of
powers.
The U.S. hardly has been exempt from
embarrassments caused by secret opera-
tives. The Reagan administration has
shown touching faith in the wondrous effi-
cacy of clandestine methods. And yet, with
all the vast resources of the CIA, and the
FBI at his command, our president tells us
that his administration simply cannot find
out what his cowboys were up to nor in
whose pockets the money generated by the
secret arms sales to Iran has ended up.
The answer to such questions, Mr. Rea-
gan keeps plaintively saying, must await
investigations conducted by congressional
committees and the special prosecutor. If
the CIA and FBI cannot even find out what
officials of the American government have
normal life, form closed and claustropho-
bic worlds. Prolonged immersion in this ul-
timately hallucinatory world erodes the re-
ality principle. Intelligence operatives be-
gin to see themselves as the appointed
guardians of the nation, more devoted and
more knowledgeable than transient elected
officials, morally authorized to do on their
own whatever they believe the nation's se-
curity demands. Intelligence services gen-
erate fantasy, protect fantasy and indulge
merchants of fantasy like Lt. Col. North.
And rival intelligence agencies live off
each other: The KGB needs the CIA, the
CIA needs the KGB and both expend much
of their effort in private jousts with the
other (like the recent affair of Nicholas
Daniloff) instead of concentrating on the
collection and analysis of intelligence.
The sad fact remains that we must have
intelligence agencies. The problem is how
to bring them under control. The first point
in a rational program would be to increase
external oversight. The English journalist
Chapman Pincher, who has written several
books exposing real and alleged Soviet
penetration of the British services, used to
oppose oversight. He has latterly changed
his mind and now regards oversight as the
"only deterrent" to the misleading of Par-
liament and the public by official state-
ments "distorted, manipulated and, on oc-
casion, falsified on spurious grounds of 'na-
tional interest,' while the real purpose was
to prevent embarrassment of departments
and individuals."
He adds that a "degree of oversight far
more embracing than anything likely to be
accepted in Britain has been operating suc-
cessfully and safely in the United States."
Recent developments, however, show that
our present oversight system is far from
adequate. The Reagan administration has
Continued
I,
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flagrantly overridden not only the princi-
ples on which legislative oversight is based
but also laws enacted by Congress. It has
done so with impunity. The laws lack crim-
inal penalties. Effective oversight calls for
addition of severe penalties to laws con-
trolling covert action. It also calls for leg-
islation requiring that all presidential intel-
ligence "findings" be put in writing and
sent within 48 hours to the National Secu-
rity Council and to the congressional intel-
ligence committees-again with penalties
in case of violation.
Mr. Le Carre warns that oversight is
not enough. External scrutiny of intelli-
gence service, he writes, "is largely an il-
lusory concept. If they're good, they fool
the outsiders-and if they're bad they fool
themselves." The other part of the reform
program must be drastic cuts in the CIA
budget. For many years the CIA has spent
most of its money on covert action. Such
action is an infallible means of getting the
country into unnecessary trouble. The
more numerous the covert action opera-
tives, the more widespread the trouble.
`Not Worth the Risk'
In 1956, Robert A. Lovett and David
Bruce wrote a report for the president's
Board of Consultants on Foreign Intelli-
gence Activities condemning "the in-
creased mingling in the internal affairs of
other nations of bright, highly graded
young men who must be doing something
all the time to justify their reason for
being." In January 1961 the same
board told President Eisenhower, "We
have been unable to conclude that, on bal-
ance, all of the covert actions programs
undertaken by the CIA up to this time have
been worth the risk or the great expendi-
ture of manpower, money and other re-
sources involved." Covert action, the re-
port continued, had "tended to detract sub-
stantially from the execution of its pri-
mary intelligence-gathering mission."
Nothing the CIA has done in 25 years since
gives reason to alter this verdict.
William Webster would be well advised
to accept a large cut in the CIA budget, to
order the intelligence community to con-
centrate on its prime and indispensable
function-collection and analysis of intelli-
gence-and to reduce covert action to a
standby capability. He also should read
two excellent new books: Christopher An-
drew's scholarly but lively study "Her
Majesty's Secret Service: The Making of
the British Intelligence Community," and
the usefully skeptical work by Philip
Knightley, "The Second Oldest Profession:
Spies and Spying in the 20th Century."
Mr. Schlesinger is Albert Schweitzer
professor of the humanities at the City Uni-
versity of New York and a winner of Pulit-
zer Prizes in history and biography.
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