JURY GETS MORISON CASE AFTER HARSH SUMMATION

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00587R000100020030-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 15, 2011
• Sequence Number: 30
• Publication Date: October 17, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/09/15: CIA-RDP91-00587R000100020030-8
ARTICLE AP
ON PAGE J
MR
WASHINGTON PGST
17 October 1985
Jury Gets Morison Case
After Harsh Summation
6
By George Lardner Jr.
Washington Past Staff Writer
BALTIMORE, Oct. 16-A Fed-
eral prosecutor assailed former
Navy intelligence analyst Samuel
Loring Morison today as a "petty,
vain, arrogant person who him-
sell above a ove the law in leaking put clas-
sified photos to en v t e secret
KH-11 spy satellite.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael
Schatzow made the charges in a
stinging summation here this after-
noon as Morison's espionage trial
drew near a close. The jury began
its deliberations just before 5 p.m.,
then adjourned for the night about
75 minutes later.
Defense attorney Robert Muse
protested in his closing arguments
that Morison "may have been
wrong" in sending to a British mag-
azine last year three KH- 11 photos,
showing the Soviet Union's first
nuclear aircraft carrier under con-
struction at a Black Sea shipyard.
But Muse insisted that his client's
conduct was far short of criminal.
He said the leaking of classified
information was a common occur-
rence in Washington and suggested
there was a strong whiff of "hypoc-
risy" in the government's singling
out a low-level bureaucrat such as
Morison for prosecution.
"If you stopped leaking in govern-
ment, you wouldn't know anything,"
Muse told the jurors at one point.
"In our government, daily, regular-
ly, people are sending it out."
Schatzow denounced such talk as
an invitation to lawlessness."
"Mr. Muse says it's not a crime,"
the prosecutor said in scornful
tones. "If Mr. Muse doesn't like the
laws in this country, he can get on
his soapbox and go down to Wash-
ington and change the law. What
Mr. Muse is asking you to do,"
Schatzow said, pointing at Morison
with a scowl, "is to do the same
thing that that man did ... ignore
your oath."
Morison a civilian analyst at the
Naval Intelligence Support Center,
is charged with of espionage and
theft for sen ir the otos to
Jane's Defence Weekly and for tak-
ing home portions of two other clas-
sified documents.
Muse depicted Morison as a loyal
American and Vietnam veteran
whose overriding interest was in a
strong Navy and whose primary
motive was in alerting the Amer-
ican public to a growing Soviet
threat on the high seas. He empha-
sized Morison's longstanding status
as American editor of Jane's Fight-
ing Ships, a companion publication
to Jane's Defence Weekly, and
maintained that the information
about the KH-11 that could be
gleaned from the photos was al-
ready well-known to the Soviets.
The defense attorney also de-
rided the idea that the documents
found in Morison's apartment, deal-
ing with a series of 1984 explosions
at a Soviet naval ammuniton dump,
were "potentially damaging" to the
United States.
Muse acknowledged that Mor-
ison had sent a summary of the ex-
plosions incident to Jane's, but said
there was "nothing in Jane's" that
had not been mentioned in other
publications.
Schatzow and fellow prosecutor
John Douglass, however, argued
that Morison must have known he
was breaking the law because he
"lied" repeatedly when first ques-
tioned in the summer of 1984.
Although U.S. District Court
Judge Joseph H. Young has already
ruled that Morison's motives were
irrelevant, Schatzow voiced skep-
ticism about the defense claims that
Morison wanted to alert the Amer-
ican public through the medium of a
British magazine where he was
seeking a full-time job. "He didn't
send it to CBS," Schatzow declared.
"He didn't send it to The Washing-
ton Post. He sent it to Jane's."
The prosecutor maintained that a
full reading of all the correspond-
ence between Jane's executives and
Morison over the years, as Muse
urged the jury to undertake, would
show the defendant as "a petty,
vain, arrogant person. And that ar-
rogance," Schatzow asserted, "is
the key to this case in terms of
what motivated him."
Both sides rested after the gov-
ernment called two final rebuttal
witnesses this morning in an effort
to counter the testimon of a re
tire career officer, Roland S.
pi~ In low, who turned out to be the
strongest witness for the defense.
Inlow, who helped develo the
K -11 and or a decade headed the
interagency committee in charge of
s y satellites, said he saw
zero damage from publication of
the photos in Jane's-in light of
what the Soviets already new.
In rebuttal, retired Army 'Brig.
N .Gen. Rutledge P. (Hap) Hazard,
who also served as head of the Na-
tional Photographic Interpretation
Center, said he felt the disclosures
gave the Soviets a fresh opportu-
nity to review and modify any pro-
grams they might have had to frus-
trate KII-11 reconnaissance.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/09/15: CIA-RDP91-00587R000100020030-8