BRITISH SPY STORY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01070R000100280002-3
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 13, 2007
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: July 20, 1982
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Approved For Release 2007/03/14: CIA-RDP88-01070R000100280002-3
" RADIO TV REPORTS, INC.
FOR PUBLIC AFFAIRS STAFF
PROGRAM All Things Considered STATION WETA Radio
NPR Network
DATE July 20, 1982 5:00 P.M. CITY Washington, D.C.
SUBJECT British Spy Story
NOAH ADAMS: Britain's Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher
has her hands full this week: IRA violence, palace security
problems, and now a new spy scandal. The last major spy scandal
erupted when Sir Anthony Blount, the famous art historian, was
exposed as a Soviet spy and stripped of his knighthood.
But as NPR's Robert Siegel reports from London, this
case is very different from the Blount affair.
ROBERT SIEGEL: This is one British spy story that does
not seem to leap from the pages of a John LeCarre novel. So far,
it involves no public school boys turned wartime spies and cold
war spy masters. It has less to do with cloaks and daggers than
with computers and long-range antennae.
The leak was at GCHQ, Governemnt Communications
Headquarters, in Cheltanham (?), about 95 miles northwest of
London. It's the equivalent of our National Security
Administration, intercepting foreign communications and storing
the data gathered in computers.
The only person charged in this story is 44-year-old
Geoffrey Arthur Prine (?), who worked at GCHQ after leaving the
Royal Air Force in 1968 until 1977. He was arraigned last
Thursday for violating Britain's Official Secrets Act. At his
arraignment, the prosecution said that he'd passed information to
others, information that could have been useful to an enemy. The
prosecution cited acts committed from 1968 until 1981, well after
Prine had left GCHQ.
Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher made a statement about
the case to the House of Commons today, but the statement turned
Approved For Release 2007/03/14: CIA-RDP88-01070R000100280002-3
 Approved For Release 2007/03/14: CIA-RDP88-01070R000100280002-3
out to be highly unrevealing.
PRIME MINISTER MARGARET THATCHER: Any charge under
Section I of the Official Secrets Act is, of course, serious and
must give rise to concern. The House will understand, however,
that until trial proceedings are completed, I cannot, for obvious
reasons, make any statement or answer questions on this case or
on related matters.
SIEGEL: So, a number of parliamentary questions -- is
computer security adeuate at GCHQ? Is there blackmail involved?
-- went unanswered.
The most important unanswered question is, who is the
person to whom Geoffrey Arthur Prine leaked British intelligence
secrets? Mrs. Thatcher stressed today that only one person,
Prine, has been charged.
Another question: Given GCHQ's close relationship to
the NSA, has American intelligence been compromised by the leak
in Cheltanham?
And then there's there question that was put in the
House of Commons today and got no answer: Was Prine arrested as
the result of a security investigation, or did British police
stumble upon his activities at Cheltanham? The reason for that
question is that Prine, in addition to being charged with
violating the Official Secrets Act, is also awaiting trial on
three charges of indecent assault on teen-aged girls aged between
13 and 16.
Approved For Release 2007/03/14: CIA-RDP88-01070R000100280002-3