ESPIONAGE CASES RISE TO RECORD IN ARREST OF VETERAN CIA ANALYST

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Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 
CIA-RDP91-00587R000100230030-5
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RIFPUB
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K
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2
Document Creation Date: 
December 22, 2016
Document Release Date: 
April 26, 2011
Sequence Number: 
30
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Publication Date: 
November 25, 1985
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OPEN SOURCE
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Approved For Release 2011/04/26: CIA-RDP91-00587R000100230030-5 WASHINGTON TIMES 25 November 1985 Espionage cases rise to record in arrest of veteran CIA analyst THE NNSHINGTTONTIMES The weekend arrest of a former CIA analyst on charges of spying for the People's Republic of China for more than 30 years has brought the number of espionage arrests this year to a record 15. Larry Wu-tai Chin, 63, was ar- rested Saturday in Alexandria. 'Itvo days earlier, Jonathan Jay Pollard, a Navy intelligence expert, was ar- rested on charges of spying for sev- eral foreign governments. His wife, Anne Henderson-Pollard, was ar- rested later and charged with gath- ering national defense information. In a year marked by increasingly frequent and public espionage ar- rests, the new cases have focused attention on security and counter- intelligence procedures in the CIA and at the Pentagon. Intelligence ex- perts say it is likely to speed security reforms in the intelligence agencies. Mr. Chin, who was an interpreter in the U.S. Foreign Broadcast Infor- mation Service, was charged with spying for Peking since 1952. He is believed to have received more than $140,000 for the information. FBI Director William Webster P said in a weekend statement that the arrest was the result of a continuing "extensive investigation" by the FBI and CIA. On Thursday, the FBI agents ar- rested Mr. Pollard on charges of spy- ing for several foreign governments, including Israel. Mrs. Henderson- Pollard was arrested Saturday for possessing classified documents. Mr. Pollard, 31, a civilian em- ployee of the Naval Investigative Service, is suspected of supplying secret data to Israel and Pakistan in exchange for cash. Intelligence sources said Mr. Pol- lard's activities may have included selling secrets to communist bloc nations and that more details on the case will be forthcoming. Some of claims made by Mr. Pollard - in questioning before and after his ar- rest - about the scope of his con- tacts with foreign governments were being viewed skeptically by some in- telligence sources. Court papers filed in the case said Mr. Pollard was interviewed by FBI agents last Monday and that follow- ing the interview he told his wife to "remove certain articles" from the couple's Northwest Washington apartment. Mrs. Pollard then transferred a suitcase with secret "national de- fense" documents that was later re- covered by FBI and Navy security agents, the papers state. The Pollards have been charged with delivering "highly classified" papers to representatives of unnamed "foreign governments." Mr. Pollard was arrested last Thursday after Israeli Embassy of- ficials escorted him out of the em- bassy compound, where the FBI said he was attempting to seek political asylum. The Chin and Pollard cases bring the number of espionage arrests this year to 15, with former CIA oper- ative Edward Lee Howard the only espionage suspect still a fugitive. Howard vanished from under an FBI surveillance net in New Mexico last September and is believed to have fled the country. Federal offi- cials have said information from Howard led Soviet authorities to a CIA mole in the Soviet avionics in- dustry. By contrast, the FBI arrested only eight people for espionage in the past three years - two each in 1983 and 1984, and four in 1982. Sen. Malcolm Wallop, a 10-year veteran of the Senate Intelligence Committee until this year said he believed the increase in espionage cases involving government employ- ees is due to counterintelligence re- forms he and other members of the committee initiated in the early 1980s. "I think that some of the counter- intelligence capabilities that we, and mainly I, have forced on the [intel- ligence] community are beginning to bear fruit;' Mr. Wallop said in an interview "They didn't like them; they do like them now" But he said more widespread se- curity and counterintelligence re- forms are needed at the CIA and other intelligence agencies. "It's an interesting thing that what they didn't want, they still boast of, and what they still need, they con- tinue to resist;" he said of several counterintelligence programs pro- posed by the committee but not im- plemented by the intelligence com- munity. He urged the intelligence community to adopt "two very pro- fessional characteristics" toward hostile intelligence agency threats: "One is the humility to think you could be fooled; and, two, the skepti- cism" required in case U.S. intelli- gence agencies are being fooled by other services. Intelligence experts say the Chin case is a serious intelligence failure because the transfer of CIA secrets to the Chinese communists allegedly continued for more than 30 years. Sino-American relations and co- operation have grown stronger in re- cent years, but experts point out that Mr. Chin is suspected of having spied for China prior to the Sino- Soviet split of 1959-60 when Peking was closely allied with the Soviet Union. Although Mr. Chin held what ap- pears to be a mid-level position as an FBIS interpreter for 31 years, his al- leged espionage activities have been described as "very damaging" to U.S. security. That damage, however, was not as severe as that inflicted by the Walker family espionage ring, which transferred top secret Navy communications codes to the Sovi- ets, one intelligence source said. Court papers identify Mr. Chin as a staff intelligence officer for for- eign documents at FBIS from 1970 until 1981, a position that would have given him access to top secret mate- rial. Passing such intelligence data could have compromised U.S. intelli- gence methods and sources with re- gard to a wide range of geographic and political intelligence, the source said. Former CIA official George Carver, who worked on Asian anal- yses among other responsibilities, said he suspected the Chinese might have sought information about U.S. relations with Japan and Korea and especially Taiwan, the general mili- tary posture of U.S. forces and the state of U.S.-Soviet relations. "The Chin case is serious because it went on so long;' Mr. Carver said in an interview. He said it will be difficult for the public to know the full extent of the national security damage, "but it does indicate that our internal secu- rity needs to be tightened up" Mr. Carver, now a senior research fellow at the Georgetown University carir,N(1D Approved For Release 2011/04/26: CIA-RDP91-00587R000100230030-5 Approved For Release 2011/04/26: CIA-RDP91-00587R000100230030-5 Center for Strategic and Interna- tional Studies, said the Chin case "overlaps" problems of CIA counter- intelligence and personnel security problems. "You have to guard against hostile penetrations, but you also have to guard against hiring the kind of peo- ple who are vulnerable to external pressure;' he said. "[CIA employees) don't like someone looking over their shoulders, they don't like someone looking into their private affairs, [and] they don't like people bringing them into suspicion because of things they might do." Mr. Chin worked with the U.S. Army in 1943 and 1944 when, ac- cording to court papers, he was re- cruited by a communist identified as "Dr. Wang" He also worked as an interpreter in the American Consul- ate in Shanghai, China, in 1948. Following the communist take- over, Mr. Chin moved to the Ameri- can Consulate in Hong Kong as a secretary/interpreter and in 1952 joined FBIS, which monitors broadcasts and publications worldwide. He was paid $2,000 (Hong Kong dollars) in 1952 by Peking's intelli- gence service to provide the loca- tions of prisoners of war from the Korean War, the court papers state. During his alleged spying activities, Mr. Chin met with communist Chi- nese intelligence officers in Toronto, Hong Kong and Peking. At those lo- cations, Mr. Chin allegedly turned over undeveloped rolls of film con- taining photographs of CIA doc- uments, the court papers state. After leaving the CIA in 1981, Mr. Chin allegedly received $50,000 in cash during a 1982 trip to Peking and in 1983 provided Chinese officials with the name of a FBIS employee who Mr. Chin believed was vulner- able to recruitment as a Chinese agent. The investigation of Mr. Chin be- gan in December 1983, according to the court documents. Lawyers for Mr. Chin said they will appeal his detention at a bond hearing set for Wednesday. If con- victed, he faces a maximum sen- tence of life in prison. The Pollards each could face a 10-year prison term and a $10,000 fine if convicted. Former CIA analyst Larry Wu-tai Chin, 63, is taken handcuffed over the weekend to an Alexandria court to be formally charged with espionage. Approved For Release 2011/04/26: CIA-RDP91-00587R000100230030-5