TURNCOAT SPY NO NEOPHYTE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00587R000200760003-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 23, 2010
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: August 25, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

4 STAT
SPOTLIGHT
25 August 1986
Turncoat Spy No Neophyte
EXCLUSIVE TO THE SPOTLIGHT
By Victor Marchetti
Edward Lee Howard, 34, the fugi-
tive former (officer who sold out
to the Soviet KGB two years ago
after being fired by the U.S. spy
agency, has now defected to the
Soviet Union. Howard avoided ar-
rest and certain prosecution for
treason when he was granted politi-
cal asylum by the Kremlin earlier this
month.
Howard's defection is a particularly
bad blow to the C1 and U.S. intelli-
gence. He was a far more important and
knowledgeable clandestine operator
than the spy agency has ever admitted,
either to the congressional oversight
committees or the American public. But
now that he is in the hands of the KGB,
the cat will soon be out of the bag.
Therefore, CIA officials have begun
to confide to key members of Congress
that Howard was more than a mere
novice agent who was being trained for a
low-level assignment in Moscow.
The SPOTLIGHT, when reporting on
the defection and subsequent "de-
defection" of KGB officer Vitaly Yur-
chenko (SPOTLIGHT, Dec. 23, 1985),
suggested Howard was a much more
valuable operator than the spy agency
was willing to let on. The CIA's claim
that he had only recently been hired and
then quickly exposed by a polygraph (lie
detector) test as being unfit-because of
drinking, drug abuse and womanizing-
was a patently false story designed to
protect the agency from embarrassment.
NO NEOPHYTE
The deception fostered by the CIA
that Howard was a neophyte may have
been swallowed by Congress and the
news media, but intelligence profes-
sionals only smiled and shook their
heads. For one thing, beginners are rare-
ly selected for sensitive assignments,
such as Moscow.
(There was an exception a few years
ago when Martha Peterson was assigned
to the communist capital. However, she
was quickly caught and exposed by the
KGB. She was sent home, and her Soviet
contact was executed.)
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Secondly, because of the KGB's close
surveillance and the intense pressure it
applies to U.S. intelligence operations
on Soviet soil, CIA clandestine case of-
ficers must be highly disguised-even
when under official cover and operating
out of the relative safety of the embassy.
Howard's background indicates he
had been building his cover for several
years, while, carefully and patiently, be-
ing trained by carrying out low-level
operations in less dangerous surround-
ings than Moscow.
His first CIA assignment, after his
basic operational training, had been as a
junior officer with the Agency for Inter-
national Development (AID) in Bolivia.
(The CIA uses AID as both a training
ground for young officers and as cover
for more senior operations officers.)
A few years later, he resigned from
AID and joined the State Department as
a Foreign Service officer. While with the
State Department, he was sent to the
American University in Washington to
study for a master's degree.
On the surface, Howard appeared to
be just another bright young man in-
terested in international affairs.
But he was not. He was a spy in train-
ing, building the cover that would be
necessary for the real work he was in-
tended eventually to do as a clandestine
case officer in Moscow-the work he
would never actually do for the CIA.
Somewhere.along the line, Howard
went bad. His personality and private
life came unstuck. It was only a matter
of time before he would be spotted and
recruited by the KGB or come to the at-
tention of the CIA's counterintelligence
staff. Fortunately, the CIA discovered
its mistake before posting him to Mos-
cow, where the KGB would have surely
recognized Howard as a weak link and
"turned" him.
Unfortunately, however, both the
CIA and the FBI flubbed up their at-
tempts to keep Howard under surveil-
lance after he had been fired and later
had threatened to deal with the Soviets.
Then, after he had already sold out to
the KGB, America's two top intelligence
agencies stumbled again, and let him get
away.
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DAMAGING TO CIA OPERATIONS
Today, Edward Lee Howard is in
Moscow telling the KGB everything he
knows about CIA clandestine operations
there. Already at least one Soviet sub-
ject, an aeronautical engineer who was
spying for the CIA, has been exposed
and executed.
Moreover, five CIA case officers pos-
ing as diplomatic officials have been ex-
posed and expelled by the Soviet Union.
In addition to the damage he has
already caused, Howard, now that he
can be interrogated in depth by the
KGB, could wreck the CIA's entire
Moscow apparatus. For one thing, he
can identify all CIA personnel working
at the agency's station in the embassy
there.
He may also be able to finger all the
CIA's clandestine assets, both Soviet
and non-Soviet, and agents being "run"
out of the station. With such knowledge,
the KGB will be able to "roll up" just
about every CIA operation now being
conducted in the communist capital.
Beyond that devastation, Howard will
be able to provide the KGB with the kind
of special information that only intelli-
gence defectors can produce. He will be
able to explain in detail how the CIA's
clandestine services are organized, how
its operators are trained and what is the
agency's operational philosophy regard-
ing the Soviet target.
He will be able to reveal both the
strengths and weaknesses of Soviet Rus-
sian division within the CIA's direc-
torate of operations.
Moreover, he will be able to identify
its personnel at headquarters in Langley,
Virginia, what their operational meth-
ods and techniques are, and most impor-
tantly what their preferred targets are.
In the process, he may also be in a posi-
tion to expose the operations of allied in-
telligence services.
But above all else, Howard will be
able to give the Soviets a feel for how
things are done in the CIA and why. In
the clandestine war between the wand
KGB, this is more important than any-
thing else. 0
-2,
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