FBI CHIEF PUTS STRESS ON CATCHING FOREIGN SPIES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00587R000100310001-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 4, 2011
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: November 30, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/03/04: CIA-RDP91-00587R000100310001-8
PAu LOS ANGELES TIMES
7n 10QC
STAT
STAT
On Pitfalls in Domestic Security
FBI Chief Puts Stress on
Catching Foreign Spies
WASHINGTON-FBI Director
illiam H. Webster, whose agency
his month arrested three employ-
of U.S. intelligence offices on
spying charges, says the United
States lacks the money and author-
itarian bent to dramatically tighten
security over the millions of Amer-
icans with access to secret docu-
ments and should concentrate in-
stead on catching foreign spies.
In an interview with The Times,
Webster said he disagrees with
suggestions that intelligence offi-
cers should be treated as "a suspect
class," and said such a policy would
pose fairness problems and "lead to
a breakdown in morale."
Instead, Webster said, counter-
uiteuigence efforts would reap the
greatest results "by focusing on the
enemy-hostile intelligence of-
cers," including many of the 4,000
communist-bloc officials in the
United States.
Some 2,500 of those officials are
from Soviet bloc nations, and an
estimated 30% to 40% are known
or suspected intelligence officers
with intelligence tasks, Webster
said in the Thursday interview.
Webster's remarks came as Ad-
ministration officials and counter-
intelligence experts began ques-
tioning the success of existing
security and counterintelligence
programs in the wake of a six-
month string of spying arrests,
largely involving American securi-
4y employees.
The case of accused Russian spy
Ronald W. Pelton demonstrates
both the failings and the pitfalls of
counterintelligence. In 1980, he
made his first trip to the Soviet
ambassador's apartment in Vienna,
where he is believed to have
disclosed a multibillion-dollar elec-
tronic snooping project by the
National Security Agency. Pelton
made at least two more trips to the
Austrian capital before the FBI
arrested him last Monday.
By MICHAEL WINES and RONALD J. OSTROW, Times Stall Writers
Besides the travel, he filed public
bankruptcy papers before quitting
a top-secret job at the NSA in 1879,
and the FBI says he began spying
by strolling undetected into the
Soviet embassy three blocks from
the White House.
Yet Pelton was not arrested until
this month. Intelligence sources
said this week that in the year after
his spying began, Administration
officials proposed to boost U.S.
counterintelligence efforts
abroad-Austria was one of the
countries-in an attempt to con-
strict the flow of American secrets
to Soviet agents abroad. intelli-
gence sources said this week.
Rejected as Toe Costly
But the proposal was abandoned
.as too costly.
. And similar lapses are common
to the cases of three other Ameri-
cans arrested this month for espio-
nage and related charges-Lary
Wu-tai Chin, accused of spying for
the Chinese for 33 years; and
Jonathan J. Pollard and his wife,
Anne Henderson-Pollard, impli-
cated in espionage for the Israelis.
Webster can understand why
.people spy. "A kind of numbness
about classified matters" has made
it increasingly easy for some
Americans to give away secrets to
foreign enemies and allies alike, he
said.
tut his solution is not to crack
down on the vast population of
potential U.S. spies. "Better to
reduce your people with access to
classified material, reduce the
numbers of classified documents
and make those with access very
sensitive." he ^id. And better to
devote FBI agents to watching
communist-bloc officials, who
Webster believes pose a far greater
security threat than do U.S. work-
ers.
Reaps Address Expected
Robert Crowley, who retired in
?1980 as assistant deputy director of
CIA operations, agrees. "It's the
high frictional loss of running a
democracy," he said. "The ACLU
(American Civil Liberties Union)
would have to go to the Bahamas
for a month if we used those
techniques."
. President Reagan, who so far has
been silent on the spy cases, is
expected to use his weekly radio
address today to put a good face on
the incidents. White House spokes-
man Larry Speakes offered a pre-
view on Monday, saying that the
Administration "from the outset
hag set priority on rooting out cases
of espionage" and that November's
ar esta means "you're seeing it pay
ofrRow."
at some intelligence officials
differ. They note that this year's
string of spying arrests-including
not only November's cases but also
the apprehension of convicted So-
viet spy John A. Walker Jr. and
two family members and a
friend-stemmed not so much from
counterintelligence work but from
chance tips.
Tip From Yucheake
Some information came from
Soviet KGB officer Vitaly Yur-
chenko, a "walk-in" who tipped off
U.S. officials to Pelton before re-
turning to the Soviet Union. The
Walker case was broken by a
warning from his former wife.
Only last weekend's arrest of
Chin on charges of spying for the
Chinese appears to be credited
directly to counterspy investiga-
tions.
"It's not so much the money,"
said one intelligence official who
asked not to be named. "Nobody is
saying Congress isn't giving
enough money. It's because of the
lack of a policy, a coherent ap-
proach.,,
The Republican and Democratic
leaders of the Senate Intelligence
Committee agree. In Senate testi-
mony last month, they called for a
"strategic framework" for counter-
intelligence, combining better do-
mestic security-stopping new
spies-with counterspy measures
to ferret out existing ones.
Continued
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"The basic question," Sens. Dave
Pat-
rick Durenberger eI.eahY (R-Minn.)
aaid,"ill
whether the executive branch will
implement these measures in the
face of opposition from elements
that have a vested interest in
leaving things the way they are."
Better Ceerilland .
Most experts believe that the
quality of U.S. counterintelligence
has improved recently, largely be-
cause of better coordination be-
tween the FBI and its younger
rival, the CIA. No longer, for
example, may the CIA legally
withhold evidence of domestic
wrongdoing by its employees from
FBI investigators.
Moreover, two laws-the 1978
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance
Act and the 1980 Classified Infor-
mation Procedures Act-have giv-
en counterspy officials new rein to
institute wiretaps on suspected for-
eign agents and to prosecute cases
without the fear of disclosing se-
crets.
But the remaining gaps in Amer-
ican counterintelligence and secu-
rity abilities are yawning ones,
intelligence officials concede.
Few Curbs N Ferelpers
Although some communist-bloc
officials are closely watched and
their activities restricted, there are
few controls on the activities of
non-diplomatic foreigners in the
United States, such as the employ-
ees of the 67 Soviet companies with
American offices. Nor is there
parity between the number of
American diplomats in communist
countries and the much larger
number of communist officials liv-
ing here.
On the domestic front, the gov-
ernment still does not conduct
counterintelligence polygraph
tests on some Americans with
access to the most sensitive kinds
of top-secret data. It does not
require financial reports to detect
pressing money problems among
sensitive workers. And it exercises
virtually no controls over retired or
resigned employees such as Pelton,
Chin and Walker.
New counterintelligence mea-
sures against foreign subversives
seem likely to be passed by this
session of Congress.
Placing new restrictions on
American workers is likely to be
much more difficult and questiona -
ble, Webster said.
For ex-employees, Webster said,
the government could make retire-
ment conditioned on submitting to i
periodic lie-detector or back-
ground checks. But "with that
additional responsibility goes addi-
tional intrusion," he noted.
Regular polygraph tests of for-
mer employees has not been for-
mallY Proposed, and Webster be-
lieves it would be unpopular. Nor is
it likely that such requirements
could be imposed retroactively, he
said.
02,
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