WEBSTER SAYS ZAKHAROV SHOULD HAVE HAD SPY TRIAL

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000706710005-9
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 13, 2011
• Sequence Number: 5
• Publication Date: November 15, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2011/12/13: CIA-RDP90-00965R000706710005-9
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WASHINGTON POST
15 November 1986
\ehster Says Zakharov Should Have Had Spy Trial
Director .-ldmits FBI Erred in Illo,ving at Er-Employe ffotcard to Escape
By Mary Thornton
W nhmgton P.,t Staff Writer
FBI Director William H. Webster
said yesterday that he thinkg that
Soviet spy Gennadi Zakharov should
have been tried before he was
traded to the Soviet Union in a com-
plicated exchange.
Webster recommended that a de-
tailed account of Zakharov's activ-
ities he made public. "I would like to
see the public have a full exposition
of [Zakharov's] activities because I
think it's important that the public
understand that we have hostile
intelligence officers who operate
from the sanctuary of the United
Nations and who engage in intelli-
gence recruiting activities on cam-
puses of our country," Webster
said.
,"rhat disposition was handled in
a very summary way in order to
protect the safety" of Soviet dissi-
dent Yuri Orlov, who was turned
over to the United States as
Zakharov was flown back to Mos-
cow. Webster said. He said a trial
would have provided an "education
to the American people."
Webster's comments on
Zakharov, made at a breakfast
meeting with reporters, were his
first public statements on the mat-
ter.
Ile also made it clear that he was
angered by reports at the time of
Zakharov's arrest that the Federal
Bureau of Investigation had acted
without authorization. "The FBI
routinely advises the State Depart.
ment of any impending arrests of an
intelligence officer and asks if there
are foreign policy objections," he
said.
Turning to another espionage
case, Webster conceded FBI error
in the case of Edward Lee Howard,
the former Central Intelligence
Agency employe who eluded FBI
surveillance in October 1985 and
defected to the Soviet Union.
Zakharov was arrested last Au-
gust in New York after purchasing
three classified documents from a
foreign student cooperating with
the FBI. His arrest set off a flurry
of retaliation, including the arrest of
U.S. News & World Report corre-
spondent Nicholas Daniloff in Mos-
cow and a series of diplomatic ex-
pulsions on both sides as the two
countries were preparing for the
summit meeting in Iceland between
President Reagan and Soviet leader
Mikhail Gorbachev.
Daniloff was eventually released.
Despite objections from the Justice
Department, Zakharov was allowed
to plead no contest to espionage
charges Sept. 30 in New York and
was immediately traded for Orlov.
Webster said the State Depart-
ment informed him before
Zakharov's arrest that it had no ob-
jection and informed the FBI that
Zakharov, a Soviet United Nations
employe, did not have diplomatic
immunity. Because of the sensitiv-
ity of the case so close to the Ice-
land summit, Webster said he also
informed the National Security
Council of the impending arrest.
Webster said that Zakharov
Presented an unusual case because
the FBI rarely apprehends foreign
spies who have no diplomatic im-
munity. The last such case occurred
in 1978 when FBI agents arrested
two Soviet U.N. employes. They
were tried and convicted and later
traded for several dissidents.
Webster said the State Depart.
ment and the CIA opposed those
arrests but were overruled by then-
Attorney General Griffin B. Bell.
"Each attorney general since then
has supported criminal prosecution
against those who don't have dip-
lomatic immunity," Webster said.
He said he expects some differ-
ences of opinion with the State De-
partment over accrediting new So-
viet diplomats to replace some who
were expelled.
In the Howard case, Webster said
a "very experienced special oper-
ations group" conducted the surveil-
lance. Agents were sent to set up a
perimeter around Howard's house
in Santa Fe, N.M., but because they
did not have probable cause to ar-
rest Howard at that point, "they
were advised not to harass him or
to come in too close to his house,"
he said.
Asked about reports that infor-
mation that would have allowed the
arrest was held up because of an
FBI error, Webster said a mistake
was made by an agent but did not
provide details. When the FBI
moved in to make the arrest, the
agents found that Howard had
slipped away several hours earlier.
Because of concerns about espi-
onage, Webster said he has decided
to conduct periodic polygraph ex-
aminations of agents who deal with
highly classified foreign counterin-
telligence information.
"I've made a decision to do it, but
I've made a decision to do it cor-
rectly .... I want to be sure these
measures [can be taken] with con-
fidence in the end product and with
care to protect the rights and dig=
nities of the [agents]," Webster
said, adding that he has not worked
out the details of the program.
The CIA periodically administers
polygraph tests to its employes, but
Webster has been reluctant to use
the technique at the FBI, except in
special circumstances. "You cannot
build an organization with morale
and pride by treating every agent as
if they are suspect .... You must
be aware of signs ... of aberration-
al behavior. That's different from
treating agents as guilty until
proved innocent," he said.
Webster said he is working on
plans for drug testing at the FBI,
despite a U.S. District Court deci-
sion this week in New Orleans that
a U.S. Customs Service drug test-
ing plan is unconstitutional.
But Webster said, "We don't
want to create the impression that
we're going through a group of
things that suggest a lack of trust in
perhaps the most trustworthy agen-
cy in the government."
Declassified and Approved For Release 2011/12/13: CIA-RDP90-00965R000706710005-9