FBI SEEKING EX-OFFICIAL WHO FLED TO ASK HIM ABOUT SPYING FOR SOVIETS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000706310016-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 21, 2011
• Sequence Number: 16
• Publication Date: October 2, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/21: CIA-RDP90-00965R000706310016-1
V A"KE
WASHINGTON POST
2 October 1985
FBI Seeking Ex-Official Who Fled
To Ask Him About Spying for Soviets
By Michael J. Sniffen
Associated Press
J FBI counterintelligence agents
are seeking a former federal official
who quit his job in New Mexico and
fled after agents began questioning
acquaintances about the possibility
he had been a Soviet spy, a U.S.
official said yesterday.
The source, who asked not to be
identified, said the investigation of
Edward L. Howard may have been
triggered by information from So-
viet defector Vitaly Yurchenko.
Yurchenko, reportedly the one-
time No. 5 official of the Soviet
KGB, defected to the West in Rome
in early August. He bad served in
Washington from 1975 to 1980.
Last week, administration and
congressional sources said Yur-
chenko had named a few former
Central Intelligence Agency men as
Soviet agents and yesterday two
officials put the number at two.
One of the two ex-CIA men im-
plicated by Yurcheno lived in the
Southwest, one of the sources said.
Among his government posts,
Howard was assigned by the State
Department to Moscow in 1983,
according to a department docu-
ment. He also served in the Agency
for International Development.
It could not be learned, however,
whether Howard was one of the
ex-CIA men named by Yurchenko
and had simply used his federal
agency posts as cover, or whether
he came to the FBI's attention
through information obtained inde-
pendently of Yurchenko.
IA spokeswoman Patty Volz
ELlined comment, as did the FBI's
Bill Baker.
In New Mexico, the AP was told
that eight FBI agents, backed by a
helicopter, converged on Howard's
home outside Santa Fe last Satur-
day. The neighbors said neither
Howard nor his wife Mary were at
home.
In July 1983, Howard became an
economic analyst for the legislative
finance committee of the New Mex-
ico legislature. He was engaged in
revenue projections and in analysis
of the oil industry.
A source in New Mexico, appar-
ently one of several Howard ac-
quaintances and co-workers inter-
viewed last week by the FBI, said
he got the impression "based on
their questions, that there was
some connection between Howard
and a KGB defector."
U.S. Attorney William Lutz, in
New Mexico, was asked about How-
ard and said: "I can't comment. We
will not comment. We are not going
to comment."
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/21: CIA-RDP90-00965R000706310016-1