LOW-LEVEL WORKER CALLED VALUABLE SPY
Document Type:
Collection:
Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST):
CIA-RDP91-00901R000500230018-2
Release Decision:
RIFPUB
Original Classification:
K
Document Page Count:
1
Document Creation Date:
December 14, 2016
Document Release Date:
November 30, 2000
Sequence Number:
18
Case Number:
Publication Date:
November 28, 1985
Content Type:
NSPR
File:
Attachment | Size |
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Body:
Approved For Release 20A? 44?ibq~A-g$F91-00901 R000500230018-2
PRT' E APPEARED 28 November 1985
Cy PAGE-AL,
Low-level worker called valuable spyr-
By Vernon A. Guidry, Jr.
wagon Bureau of The Sun
WASHINGTON - Low-level em-
ployees with broad access to secrets
can do more harm than high-rank-
Ing spies, according to retired Adm.
Bobby Inman, who once headed the
National Security Agency and later
was No. 2 at the Central Intelligence
Agency.
The most. recent of a raft of spy -
cases Involves Ronald W. Pelton.
who left the NSA in 1979 and short-
ly thereafter, the government
charges, approached the Soviet Em-
bassy here with an offer of NSA se-
crets.
Admiral Inman, relying solely on
press reports, said In a telephone in-
terview Last night that it appeared
Mr. Pelton was a low-level employee
of the agency, but that such a fact
was not reassuring. For one thing,
the admiral said. "every spy case
hurts. There are no such things as
ones that do no damage."
For another, he said, low-level
employees with access to secrets are
frequently better spies than those
with access to policy-making coun-
cils. Spies in policy-making councils
may offer reports colored by their
own bias, he said.
He said the better spy might be
someone such as a communications
technician with access to documents
of other hard information. "the guy
who'll give you actual copies of r{iies-
sages, the sole most valuable source.
particularly if you can sustain it over
a long time."
The depth of the damage a spy
can do, he wilt, Is determined by the
breadth of, access to secrets, and
that is not always a matter of how
senior the spy Is.
More broadly, he said. U.S. coun-
terintelligence agents are facing "a
whole new, tougher environment" in
their attempts to catch spies moti-
vated mostly by money who do little
to tip their hands in conventional
ways. Admiral Inman said last night
in a telephone interview that "you
have to wonder how counterintelli-
gence deals with this."
In many recent cases, it was the
would-be spy with U.S. secrets to
sell who allegedly made the Initial
approach to the Soviet Union.
The tip-off appears to be finan-
cial distress, but in a society where
you've got 4 million people with (se-
curity) clearances, how do you track
that? I haven't begun to come to
grips with the scale of that problem."
he said.
In these situations, traditional
ploys - such as watching opposing
agents to see whom they are at-
tempting to recruit or being alert to
conduct tt[atcould lead to blackmail
- are not enough, he said.
Whememployees quit intelligence
agencies or are fired, counterintelli-
gence officers lose their edge. he
said.
if the employee served long
enough to retire, then you've got a
string on them," the retired admiral
said. You can always call them 1
back: you can do other things. But if j
they've resigned, that's the end of
the string. They become just like any
other U.S. citizen. but they're walk-
ing around with a lot of knowledge."
Si-.;.u,ice is maintained on
places where the Soviets are known
to bring American spies, such as
Moscow's embassy in Vienna, Aus-
tria, where. Mr. Pelton apparently,
went twice. Such surveillance is not
foolproof, Admiral Inman said: "It's
pretty hard to identify every Ameri-
can who goes in and out."
He said he expected there would
be more cases coming from agencies
that generate America's secrets, as
well as those charged with finding
out the adversary's secrets.
Approved For Release 2003/04/02 : CIA-RDP91-00901 R000500230018-2