NUMBER OF SOVIETS IN U.S. CALLED THREAT TO SECURITY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000302590011-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 21, 2012
• Sequence Number: 11
• Publication Date: August 11, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

1ST Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/09/21 : CIA-R
ARTICLE APPEARE
ON PAGE Ifr
BALTIMORE SUN
11 August 1985
Number of Soviets in U.S.
called threat to security
By Vernon A. Guidry Jr.
Washington Bureau of The Sun
WASHINGTON ? Operating
from an imposing embassy on 16th
Street here that predates the Com-
munist revolution. Soviet spies gath-
er information almost openly in the
halls of the federal government and
more circumspectly on suburban
back roads.
Across the continent. in an afflu-
ent San Francisco neighborhood
called Cow Hollow. a seven-story
brick building houses the Soviet con-
sulate. The American counterintelli-
gence community regards it as the
West Coast headquarters for the re-
lentless Soviet pursuit of U.S. high
technology, military and otherwise.
These are the most prominent
outposts of the hundreds of Soviet
and other Eastern bloc agents be-
lieved to be operating in the United
States. They have become increas-
ingly controversial since the charges
that the alleged Walker "spy ring"
sold Navy secrets to Moscow for
nearly two decades and the first-
time ever conviction of an FBI agent
for passing bureau information to
the Soviet Union.
The Soviets American outposts
are a source of frustration to coun-
terintelligence experts and govern-
ment officials who believe Washing-
ton is needlessly giving Soviet
espionage a helping hand by permit-
ting too many official Russians in
the United States.
A recent report by the Senate In-
teWgence Committee put it this way:
-The danger to U.S. national se-
curity entailed by larger-than-neces-
sary numbers of Soviet diplomatic
and con.sular officials in the U.S. and
Soviet personnel at our embassy and
consulates in the Soviet Union re-
quires immediate action."
The mention of Soviet personnel
in U.S. facilities was a reference to
the fact that while the Soviet Union
provides all its own personnel in this
country, from Janitors to ambassa-
dors, the United States hires Rus-
sians for many Jobs at U.S. facilities
in the Soviet Union.
The report went on to say that
while administration officials say
they are committed to fixing the
problem, little effort has actually
been seen.
In fact. President Reagan used
his Saturday radio broadcast on
June 29 to say the United States
should 'reduce the size of the hostile
intelligence threat we're up against
In this country." In the same broad-
cast, the president said that "we
need a balance between the size of
the Soviet diplomatic presence in the
United States and the U.S. presence
in the Soviet Union. . .
At the State Department, howev-
er, an official involved with the issue
says there's no plan to reduce the
size of the Soviet contingent in this
country. As far as the balance dis-
cussed by the president goes, con-
sideration is being given to replacing
sOme Russian workers in U.S. facili-
ties with Americans "when we can
afford it and it will contribute to em-
bassy security."
This has been the department's
longstanding approach to the ques-
tion.
The Soviet Union has about 320
persons officially associated with its
embassy here and consulate in San
Francisco, about evenly divided be-
tween diplomats and support per-
sonnel such as chauffeurs and Jani-
tors. The U.S. counterintelligence
community estimates that perhaps
a" much as 40 percent of the total is
composed of professional spies.
The United States has 185 Amer-
icans officially working at its embas-
sy and consulate in the Soviet
Union, nearly all diplomats. Moscow
has not put a limit on the number of
Americans it will allow, but the
Lilted States capped the Soviet
presence here at 320 in 1980 as a
response to the Soviet invasion of
Afghanistan.
These figures do not count the
number of Soviets assigned to the
United Nations in New York or such
changing numbers as trade delega-
tions and the like that allegedly have
been used as covers for spies.
In total, according to the FBI,
there are approximately 4,300 offi-
cials from the Soviet Union, Soviet
bloc oikintries, Cuba and the Peo-
ple's Republic of China in the United
States. It is estimated that 30 to 40
percent of them are intelligence pro-
fessionals.
The arrest on spy charges of for-
DP90-00965R000302590011-4
mer Navy warrant officer John A.
Walker Jr., two relatives and a for-
mer Navy colleague sent shock
waves through both the military and
the counterintelligence communi-
ties. Mr. Walker was arrested May
21 in Montgomery County after the
FBI said he left a plastic bag with
classified documents for a Russian
contact. That contact was apparent-
ly a Soviet diplomat seen in the area
of the drop, the FBI says.
John Walker's brother. Arthur,
was convicted Friday of seven char-
ges involving espionage.
"The Walker case reinforces our
longstanding concern about the ex-
tent and scope of Soviet espionage
activities in this country," said Sen.
Patrick J. Leahy. D-Vt., vice chair-
man of the Senate Intelligence Com-
mittee.
Mr. Leahy and Sen. William S.
Cohen, R-Maine, have written an
amendment to the State Department
authorization bill to limit the num-
ber of Soviet diplomats and embassy
personnel in this country to the
number of Americans in similar po-
sitions in the Soviet Union. ,
In introducing the measure to the
Senate. Mr. Leahy said it would
speed the reduction of the approxi-
mately 200 Russians employed by
the U.S. embassy in Moscow and
consulate in Leningrad.
It would, as well, he said. require
"action to be taken to draw down the
numbers of Soviet diplomatic and
consular representatives in the Unit-
ed States."
The State Department opposed
the amendment, saying the limits on
its flexibility in carrying out its own
staffing process "could be harmful to
U.S. interests."
Last week, the amendment sur-
vived in the final version of the State
Department authorization bill. The
administration has six months to
come up with a plan for evening out
the numbers.
"It doesn't mean you're going to
stop spying here," Senator Leahy
told a TV interviewer. "There's no
way you could pass a law to outlaw
the Soviets spying here, but you
could certainly cut down the number
of those who have diplomatic immu-
nity and give the FBI a fighting
chance. Right now, they don't have
that."
According to William Colby, for-
mer director of the Central Intelli-
gence Agency, "A good way to han-
dle the Soviets is strict recionxity. In
other words, if we have 10 peppri.
Continued
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they cam have 10. There are limits
you can out on them_ and the best
way to do it is straignt,_ equal treat-
ment, both ends, and be lust tougher
than nails about is."
4s for increasing the U.S. pres-
ence in Moscow, Mr. Colby said, Tm
all for that. Every set of eyes and
ears over there is a big help to us."
John Barron, author of "KGB To-
day ? The Hidden Hand,- has
called for drastic reductions of Soviet
and Eastern bloc spies by mass ex-
pulsions. Mr. Barron is widely re-
garded as having substantial access
to U.S. counterintelligence informa-
tion.
He maintains that diplomatic sta-
tus allows spies "to wander through
Congress. government offices and
universities as Soviet lobbyists, to
stroll through laboratories, research
centers and factories as thieves of
technology, to sneak out from their
sanctuaries in the night to meet
their spies. to daily intercept the tele-
phone conversations of hundreds of
thousands of Americans."
Mr. Barron sees little merit in the
argument that spies posing as dip-
lomats, called legals" in the trade.
are more visible and thus easier to
handle than the "illegals" likely to
replace them if the number of dip-
lomats is reduced.
"The utility of an illegal, his abili-
ty to circulate, to have entree, is so
drastically less than that of a dip-
lomat functioning out of a sanctuary
that we would greatly benefit if they
had to rely on illegals." he said.
"Maintenance and support of an ille-
gal agent is extremely costly. The de-
velopment and deployment of an il-
legal requires many years."
2.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/09/21 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000302590011-4