ALL MARINES IN MOSCOW RECALLED

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000503990010-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 20, 2012
• Sequence Number: 10
• Publication Date: March 31, 1987
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000503990010-8
V
All Marines
In Moscow
Recalled
`Precautionary' Move
Is Intended to Aid
Embassy Spy Probe
By David B. Ottaway
and Bill' McAllister
Wadsowo hat Sla(( Writer
The State Department an-
nounced yesterday that the entire
28-man Marine Corps guard de-
tachment at the U.S. Embassy in
Moscow has been recalled to the
United States as part of the inves-
tigation into alleged espionage by
two guards last year.
"This measure is precautionary in
nature and is intended to facilitate
an investigation of the security pro-
gram at the U.S. Embassy," State
Department spokeswoman Phyllis
Oakley said.
"There is no evidence that any of
the returning Marines are impli-
cated in any wrongdoing," she
added.
Oakley said this was the first
time in the 39-year history of Ma-
rine security duty at U.S. embassies
around the world that an entire de-
tachment has been recalled. It
seemed to underscore the deep
concern among administration of-
ficials about wlptt is emerging as
one of the worst security breaches
at a U.S. embassy.
Meanwhile, U.S. officials said the
communications system at the Mos-
cow embassy has been largely shut-
down and that everything but ron"
tine message traffic is now being
' carried by messenger to Frankfurt,
West Germany.
"You -haw: ransoms tbat.everyr_
thing has beic aampcomie * saki"
one official. "Yaujust *Wt kiwi."
U.S. officials said the immediate,.
objective is to crease, "a secure en.-,
viromnent" at the embassy by April w
13, when. Secretary of State George
WASHINGTON POST
31 March 1987
P. Shultz arrives in Moscow for
talks with Soviet Foreign Minister
Eduard Shevardnadse. But they
were doubtful whether this could be
accomplished in two weeks.
A senior U.S. official said the
State Department is going under
the assumption that the most se-
cure areas of the embassy may have
been penetrated, including the
"bubble; the specially designed in-
ner sanctum for highly confidential
talks.
Embassy personnel are writing
messages in longhand and avoiding
use of electrical typewriters and
dictation machines, the official said.
Oakley also announced that the
State Department has begun a full-
scale counterintelligence investiga-
tion with other appropriate federal
agencies into . possible security
breaches at the U.S. Embassy in
Vienna. But there is no plan to re-
call Marine guards stationed there,
she said.
One of the two accused Marine
guards, Sgt. Clayton J. Lonetree,
served in Vienna after leaving Mos-
cow in March 1986. He reportedly
has told investigators that he met
there with a man believed to be a
Soviet KGB agent and supplied him
with Vienna embassy documents.
A State Department official said
there are three investigations un-
der way into the Moscow embassy
security breach, with the State De-
partment taking the lead in trying
to determine the extent of damage
as well as examining future rules,
procedures and assignment policies
for the Marine guards at U.S. em-
bassies.
In addition, the Defense Depart-
ment is looking into the selection
process and qualifications of candi-
dates for the Marine guard pro-
gram. The Navy Investigative Ser-
vice is also conducting a criminal
investigation of the incident. ,
Departing Navy Secretary John
F. Lehman Jr. said yesterday that
he favors giving polygraph tests at
random to Marine guards and 911
other people, civilian or military,
who have access to highly sensitive
material.
At a luncheon with Washington
Post reporter? and editors, Lehman
said such tests would have great
deterttht vaht%conwisgitbe prow
cedure to urinalysis tests the mil-
itary services use to detect drug
users.
Oakley said the Moscow embassy
guards will be rotated home in
groups during April and replaced by
others stationed at other embassies
or from Marine Corps headquarters
in Quantice, Va.
She said there had been "some
overlap" between the duty tours of
the two accused Marine guards,
Lonetree and Cpl. Arnold Bracy,
and some other Marines now in
Moscow. Lonetree, 25, and Bracy,
21, served together during an
eight-month period from July 1985
to March 1986.
The two Marines are accused of
having had sexual affairs with two
Soviet employes at the embassy.
They are also accused of allowing
Soviet agents access at night to
some of. the chancery's most sen-
sitive areas and of identifying U.S.
intelligence agents for the Soviets.
In New York, lawyers for Lone-
tree released edited versions of two
of the Marine's early interviews
with investigators.
In those sessions, Lonetree ac-
knowledged having an affair with a
Soviet woman who worked at the
embassy and then being lured into
supplying documents and informa-
tion to her "uncle," a man Lonetree
soon realized worked for the Soviet
KGB.
Ronald Kuby, an associate of
New York lawyer William Kunstler,
said the documents portray the in-
consistencies of a young man who
lived a fife in the Soviet Union that
was filled with fantasies. "It is pos-
;3ible that his statements are a com-
bination of the government's fan-.
tasy and his fantasy," Kuby said.
Lonetree was taken yesterday to
Bethesda naval hospital to undergo
a mental examination at the request
of the military officer overseeing
legal proceedings against him.
Although his defense lawyers
sought yesterday to portray Lone-
tree as a young man fascinated by
espionage novels and living out a
fantasy in Moscow, they did not
request the examination and Kuby
expressed suiiprise about the ac-
tion.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000503990010-8
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000503990010-8 .Q
After the examination, Lonetree
was returned to the brig at Quan-
tico, where he and Bracy are being
held in solitary confinement.
In the statements Lonetree gave
officers- of the Naval Investigative
Service in Vienna and in .London
last December, he said he had ac-
cepted a total of $3,500 from the
man whom his Soviet girlfriend,
Violetta Alexdrovna Sauna, identi-
fied as her "Uncle Sasha." He told of
using countersurveillance tech-
niques, such as changing his coat,
backtracking and changing his
methods of transportation, when he
was meeting with her.
He acknowledged supplying the
man with embassy documents and
said he believed that he had been
entrapped by the KGB and was
powerless to act.
"I realized that in light of the
Walker [spy] case, I was in trouble,"
he said in the Vienna interview. "In
some ways I felt that by not initially
reporting the incident I was getting
in deeper and deeper."
In the London interview, he
blamed his involvement on his de-
sire for "intrigue." In Vienna, Lone.
tree, an American Indian, said, "I
was not doing this for money. I
guess some of my actions were
based on hatred for prejudice ...
because of what the white man did
to the Indian. What I did was noth-
ing compared to what the U.S. gov-
ernment did to the American Indian
100 years ago. But I still have a
great love for my country."
Kuby said investigators tricked
Lonetree into making the state-
ment and that it became "incumbent
on us to release the statements that
were made" in an effort to state
their clients' position.
"It defies credulity that a Marine
sergeant and a marine corporal are
given complete access to the em-
bassy and this is the U.S. Embassy
in Moscow," he said.
"To take the government's case,
our law office is more secure than
the embassy."
Staff writers Don Oberdorfer and
George G Witwn contributed to this
report
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000503990010-8