U.S. ALERTED TO EMBASSY BUGS IN '79

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000604900009-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 4, 2012
• Sequence Number: 9
• Publication Date: April 23, 1987
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/04: CIA-RDP90-00965R000604900009-7
W%IASHINGTON POST
23 April 1987
U.S. Alerted to Embassy Bugs in '79
But Task Force Believed It Could `Neutralize' Soviet Devices
J y David B. Ottaway
Washington Post-Staff-Writer -
The United States knew from the
start of construction in 1979 on its
new embassy complex in Moscow
that the Soviet Union was planting
listening devices in the chancery
building, Assistant Secretary of
State Robert E. Lamb said yester-
day.
"We knew the Soviets were going
to bug us," Lamb told the House
subcommittee on international op-
erations. "We had a strategy for
finding it."
U.S. supervisors overseeing the
construction were even given infor-
mation "on bugs coming in" by
American construction personnel
and Navy Seabees working at the
site, and a special interagency task
force had been set up to counter the
threat in 1979, Lamb said.
But the counterintelligence task
force, established under President
Jimmy Carter, did not foresee the
possibility that the Soviets would
use "the structure itself as part of
the bugging," Lamb added.
He was referring to listening de-
vices implanted in pieces of precast
concrete and around the construc-
tion reinforcing bars that were
made by a Soviet company away
from the embassy site without U.S.
supervision. Those materials were
used in construction of the chancery
walls and floors.
Not until August 1985, six years
after construction began, did the
Reagan administration halt all work
on the chancery after discovering
the hidden bugs.. Soviet construc-
tion workers were "locked out"
from the site then and work has not,
resumed since.
Lamb and his aides indicated yes-
terday that U.S. counterintelligence
agents had first thought they could
"neutralize" and turn their knowl-
edge of Soviet bugging efforts to
the advantage of the, United States,
but then discovered the devices
were planted inside the building
materials.
"These are the kind of things that
are going to be difficult for us to
neutralize," said Lamb, who is head
of the State Department's Bureau
of Diplomatic Security.
The State Department official
insisted it was "premature" to con-
clude that the only option open to
the administration now is to tear
down the bug-ridden new embassy
chancery building and start all over
again. "A lot of options have to be
considered," he said.
Richard N. Dertadian, deputy
assistant secretary of the depart-
ment's Foreign Building Office, said
the government is contemplating
the "deconstruction" of the top two
or three floors of the embassy chan-
cery.
Asked by the subcommittee
chairman, Rep. Daniel A. Mica (D-
Fla.), what it would cost to "decon-
struct" the top floors, Dertadian
said it would be as much as the
United States has already actually
spent to build the chancery build-
ing-$23 million of the total $67
million appropriated. The remaining
$43 million is earmarked for inter-
nal furnishing and security.
Altogether, Congress has appror-
piated $192 million for the entire
embassy complex of eight buildings,
six of which are already occupied by
American diplomats, other person-
nel and their families.
Lamb sought to reassure out-
raged committee members that
"very good technical minds" in the
U.S. counterintelligence community
are now at work to establish a se-
c 1eaarea within the new embassy..
"We will not allow them to occu-
py Mount Alto until we have a se-
cure embassy in Moscow," the
State Department official said, re-
ferring to the still-unoccupied new
Soviet chancery located on Mount
? Alto off Wisconsin Avenue.
He also said that if Americans
were surprised at the Soviet meth-
ods used to bug the new U.S. Em-
bassy in Moscow, the Soviets were
"even more surprised" by the highly
sophisticated countermeasures the
United States had used to discover
the implanted Soviet bugs.
Lamb, who has just returned
from a 36-hour visit to Moscow,
said he could give the subcommit-
tee "some assurances on some
points" that embassy security was
"good" but that he came back con-
cerned "in some other areas." He
refused to elaborate in the public
session but later briefed the sub-
committee behind closed doors. .
He said he had not seen a U.S.
embassy "anywhere in the world" in
worse condition than the one in
Moscow, which he described as "a
sloppy, dirty embassy, poorly main-
tained [which] makes it very diffi-
cult to protect the national security
information that is in that building."
Lamb said unauthorized contacts
between the Marine guards and
Soviet women were not as wide-
spread as first thought. After in-
tense interrogation and some poly-
graph testing of the Moscow
guards, it is now thought that "less
than 10, maybe less than half a doz-
en," had known that "an individual
Marine" was involved in "clandes-
tine fraternization."
He was apparently referring to
Sgt. Clayton J. Lonetree, who has
been charged with espionage and
admitted he was having an affair
with a Soviet woman who intro-
duced him to a KGB agent. Another
Marine, Cpl. Arnold Bracy, has also
been accused of espionage.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/04: CIA-RDP90-00965R000604900009-7