WEINBERGER FEARS SERIOUS LOSSES IN EMBASSY SPY CASE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000706070005-0
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 7, 2011
• Sequence Number: 5
• Publication Date: January 15, 1987
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2011/12/07: CIA-RDP90-00965R000706070005-0
LOS ANGELES TIMES St`15 January 1987 11'Lt.
!Weinberger Fears Serious Losses in
Embassy Spy Case
61
By GAYLORD SHAW,
Timer Staff Writer
WASHINGTON-Defense Sec-
"retary Caspar W. Weinberger ex-
pressed concern Wednesday over
,what he called "potentially a seri-
ous set of losses" involving an
espionage case in which a Marine
guard was reportedly seduced by a
Soviet woman employed at the U.S.
Embassy in Moscow.
"Preliminary indications are that
it it is quite serious," Weinberger said
t of the case of Marine Sgt. Clayton J.
Lonetree, now held in solitary
confinement at Quantico, Va. Lo-
netree is awaiting proceedings in
which he could be formally
i charged with several counts relat-
ed to taking secret material from
embassies in Moscow and Vienna
and passing it to the Soviets.
The State Department, mean-
t while, said it has launched a
,full-scale counterintelligence in-
kvestigation and "a worst-case
,damage assessment" because of
"possible security compromises at
,the U.S. embassies in Moscow and
'Vienna."
State Department spokeswoman
i
Awowl.d Prey.
Sgt. Clayton J. Lonetree
Phyllis Oakley would not elaborate
on the case, but sources have told
The Times that Lonetreeconfessed
that he had provided secretinfor-
mation to the KGB after he was
seduced by a Soviet woman work-
ing in the American Embassy in
Moscow.
As a Marine guard, Lonetree had
extensive access to classified infor-
mation at the embassies, where
guards are entrusted not only with
protecting documents but with de-
stroying them.
Weinberger, in a session with a
group of reporters at the Pentagon,
said that investigations of the Lo-
netree case are continuing. "We
hope it won't add to the losses
we've already suffered, which are
very substantial," he said in an
apparent reference to spy cases last
year involving active and retired
Navy personnel.
"It is potentially a serious set of
losses," Weinberger added. "It is a
continuing source of the greatest
unhappiness that even the people
least likely to commit treason
against the United States may have
done so."
While declining to discuss spe-
cifics of the Lonetree case, Wein-
berger said that "it illustrates one
of the major problems of utilizing
KGB people as employees in the
embassy, something we've worried
about for a very long time."
In Lonetree's hometown of St.
Paul, Minn., his father, Spencer
Lonetree, said that the family had
hired nationally known trial law-
yer William Kunstier to defend the
25-year-old Marine.
In his Pentagon meeting with
reporters, Weinberger also fielded
questions on issues ranging from
the contras in Nicaragua to the
prospects for deploying the first
phase of the "Star Wars" space-
based anti-missile system, formally
known as the Strategic Defense
Initiative.
The contras, he said, "are doing
very well. . . . They have made an
impressive showing" recently in
their fight against the Sandinista
government. The rebels now have
in the field "a lot more than they
had a few weeks ago," Weinberger
said without elaboration. Other
Pentagon officials later estimated
the current rebel force at 8,000.
Weinberger, in urging congres-
sional approval of President Rea-
gan's request for $105 million in aid
to the contras, said that the Marxist
government in Nicaragua received
23,000 tons of military supplies last
year from the Soviet Union, its
Eastern European allies and Cuba.
This was an increase from about
1,000 tons in Soviet military sup-
plies shipped in 1981 and from
1985's total of 13,900 tons. accord-
ing to new Pentagon estimates.
In discussing the "Star Wars?
research program, Weinberger said
that ..we are making great prog-
ress" but that it is too early to
estimate when deployment of a
first phase could begin. He repeat-
ed his opposition to initial deploy-
ment as "a traditional ground-
based" anti-ballistic missile system
to protect missile sites, for instance,
preferring instead a system to
protect the entire North American
continent.
Declassified and Approved For Release 2011/12/07: CIA-RDP90-00965R000706070005-0