ZAKHAROV INDICTED IN N.Y. ON CHARGES OF ESPIONAGE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000605100039-1
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 3, 2012
• Sequence Number: 39
• Publication Date: September 10, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/05/03: CIA-RDP90-00965R000605100039-1
WASHINGTON POST
10 September 1986
Zakharov Indicted in N.Y.
On Charges of Espionage
By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
A federal grand jury in Brooklyn
yesterday indicted Gennadi
Zakharov, the Soviet U.N. employe
whose arrest last month on espio-
nage charges and unusual detention
in jail reportedly triggered Mos-
cow's arrest of American journalist
Nicholas Daniloff.
The move came .one day after the
Soviets officially charged Dandoff
with spying and thus continued es-
calation of the legal and diplomatic
confrontation between the United
States and the Soviet Union.
Attorney General Edwin Meese
III, in announcing the indictment,
-promised that violators of U.S. es-
pionage laws will be "prosecuted
vigorously."
A Justice Department spokesman
said yesterday that Zakharov's ar-
raignment, for crimes that could
bring life imprisonment, is set for
Sept. 19, the day presummit talks
are scheduled to begin between
Secretary of State George P. Shultz
and Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard
Shevardnadze.
A Soviet diplomat said last week
that the Soviet U.N. employe had
been "entrapped," a description
used by U.S. officials and journalists
in describing what happened to
Daniloff.
Zakharov, a 39-year-old physicist
employed by the U.N. Secretariat,
was arrested Aug. 23 on a Queens.
N.Y., subway platform after receiv-
ing three classified documents from
a source who was working with the
Federal Bureau of Investigation. He
has been held in jail in New York
City since then despite a request by Soviet Ambassador
Yuri Dubinin that he be released to his custody.
The treatment of Zakharov is apparently unprece-
dented. In the past, Soviet employes of the United Na-
tions and diplomats arrested for spying had been re-
leased either on bail or to the custody of their ambas-
sador, according to John Maje, Zakharov's lawyer.
Nonetheless, a U.S. magistrate in Brooklyn on Aug.
27, turned down Dubinin's request, accepting the ar-
gument from Assistant U.S. Attorney John Gallagher
that there was no proof that Dubinin had any con-
trol over Zakharov to prevent him from fleeing the
country.
Three days later, Daniloff, longtime correspondent
for U.S. News & World Report, was seized by KGB
agents in a Moscow park after taking an envelope from
a Soviet friend he had not seen for a year. The envel-
ope, when opened, was found to contain two maps that
were marked top secret, according to what Daniloff
later told his wife.
Since that time Daniloff has been held in a Soviet
prison.
A U.S. proposal to have Daniloff freed in return for
allowing Zakharov to be turned over to his ambassador
was rejected by the Soviets. One Soviet diplomat said
he thinks that Daniloff will not be allowed out of the
Soviet Union unless it is certain that Zakharov will also
be sent home.
At the White House senior staff meeting yesterday,
sources said, the question was raised as to why the ar-
rest of Zakharov, who has been under FBI investigation
for more than three years, took place just as U.S. and
Soviet diplomats were trying to work out arrangements
for a summit between President Reagan and Soviet
leader Mikhail Gorbachev.
A Justice Department source said there would be "no
comment" on questions about the timing of the
Zakharov arrest. Justice Department sources, however,
said the decision to arrest the U.N. employe was made
in Washington after "many conferences."
Zakharov, who has a PhD in physics and mathemat-
ics, was once an exchange student in the United States
and worked for the U.S.S.R. State Committee for Sci-
ence and Technology from 1979 to 1980, according to
the FBI.
According to the justice presentation at the magis-
trate's hearing in Brooklyn, Zakharov is a KGB agent
"trained in the ways of the clandestine life."
From December 1982 when he came to the United
States as a scientific affairs officer in the U.N. center
for science and technology for development, he was
under FBI surveillance, according to the Justice De-
partment.
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 Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/05/03: CIA-RDP90-00965R000605100039-1
Government sources describe Soviet agents such as
Zakharov as specialists in recruiting potential sources
of-classified information.
In April 1983, according to the FBI, Zakharov "ap-
proached" a third-year student at Queens College who
was majoring in computer sciences. Zakharov described
himself as a U.N. employe and told the student, who
was from Guyana but has yet to be identified, that he
was doing research on robotics and computer technol-
ogy. Zakharov offered the student money for research
information, the FBI said.
On May 3, 1983, according to the FBI, they met
again and Zakharov, who identified himself as a Soviet,
gave. the student money although he had not delivered
.anything. From that time until the student was grad-
uated from Queens in January 1985, they continued to
meet and Zakharov paid the student for microfiches of
computer data that he stole from libraries and informa-
tion centers, the FBI reported.
Zakharov paid to have the student's resume prepared
and encouraged him to get a job with a high-tech com-
pany. In addition, beginning in March 1985, Zakharov
appeared to take the relationship to a new level, accord-
ing to the FBI. He. began training the student in clan-
destine meetings and delivery of material, the essen-
tials of espionage.
At the same time, the FBI stepped up its activities,
supplementing physical surveillance of Zakharov by wir-
ing the student and thus obtaining tape recordings of
their conversations.
In September 1985, the student was hired by a com-
pany in Queens that manufactured "unclassified preci-
sion components for use in military engines and in ra-
dars," according to the FBI.
Thereafter, Zakharov changed his requests from un-
classified computer data to material related to the com-
pany's activities.
This year the student provided some unclassified ma-
terials "pertaining generally to the maintenance and
manufacture of components of military aircraft en-
gines," according to the FBI, and entered into a formal
agreement to provide information to Zakharov in return
for money.
Last month the FBI decided to provide three docu-
ments with low classifications that the student could
give to Zakharov. Moments after Zakharov allegedly
opened an envelope the student had given him and
"browsed" over its contents, the FBI arrested him on
the New York subway platform.
The highly publicized arrest of Zakharov followed a
series of embarrassing spy cases, including the success-
ful flight from bureau surveillance of Edward L. How-
ard, the former CIA agent who sold secrets to the So-
viets.
It also came when Zakharov was four months from
the end of his four-year tour with the United Nations.
Soviet employes of the United Nations were last
charged with espionage in 1978. Bail of $2 million was
set for two Soviet suspects arrested then, but they
were soon released without bail into the custody of
then-Soviet ambassador. to the United States, Anatoliy
Dobrynin, who guaranteed they would appear in
court when required. They were later sent home in a
swap.
Intelligence specialists and former government of -o
ficials said yesterday they could recall no other case in
which a suspected Soviet spy trapped in an FBI sting
operation like the one that caught Zakharov was held
without bail in a U.S. prison.
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/05/03: CIA-RDP90-00965R000605100039-1