1985: The Year of the Spy

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The American media referred to 1985 as the Year of the Spy because law enforcement arrested many foreign spies operating on American soil.

The 8 major saboteurs who became infamous in 1985 for espionage against the US were John Anthony Walker, Richard Kelly Smyth, Sharon W. Scranage, Larry Wu-Tai Chin, Jonathan Jay Pollard, Ronald William Pelton, Randy Miles Jeffries, and Edward Lee Howard.

Contents

[edit] Political Climate

The majority of these operatives were spying for Communist nations. Their arrests in 1985 heightened tensions between the US and the Soviets at a crucial point in the Cold War as Mikhail Gorbachev rose to power as Soviet general secretary in the same year.

These high-publicity cases added to the American public’s suspicion of the Soviets at a time when the USSR was transitioning into new leadership and reforms under Gorbachev to the extent that even Gorbachev’s meeting with President Ronald Reagan at the November 21, 1985 Geneva Summit did little to reduce uncertainty as to the future of US-Soviet relations.

The arrest of so many foreign spies working within the US Intelligence Community sparked two demands among the American public: more internal government security and protection against infiltration, and more and better public access to government information.[1]

[edit] Aftermath

As a result, journalists and researchers who had been demanding and obtaining government information sought to store it in one central location and in 1985 created the National Security Archive at The George Washington University in Washington, DC.[2]

The Archive obtains declassified government documents via the Freedom of Information Act, Mandatory Declassification Review, presidential paper collections, congressional records, and court testimony.[2]

The Archive’s mission is to ensure and uphold the right to public access to historical documents and records that can provide background for and clarify the US government’s process of decision making.[2]

Only private individuals and foundations including the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Ford Foundation, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation fund the Archive’s USD 2.5 million annual budget. The US government does not fund the Archive.[2]

[edit] John Anthony Walker

John Anthony Walker was born on July 28, 1937 in Scranton, Pennsylvania to Margaret Scaramuzzo and James Vincent Walker. James drank heavily and frequently beat Margaret and their children.[3]

As a child, John Anthony Walker was a rebellious practical joker. At his Catholic high school, he performed poorly academically and did not participate in sports. When he was 17, law enforcement arrested him for burglary, at which time he admitted to 6 other burglaries. In court his older brother, a US Naval officer, urged the judge to give him probation so that he might enlist in the Navy and gain discipline.[4]

Walker enlisted in the Navy in 1956.[4]

In 1967, he walked into the Soviet embassy in Washington, DC and offered to steal codes, code machines, and classified documents from the Navy for the initial price of USD 500 to 1000 per week.[5]

For Walker, the Cold War was a game. He believed an outbreak of war would never happen, and that his treason would not cause real damage.[4] He recruited his wife Barbara, his friend Jerry Whitworth, his older brother Arthur, and his son Michael to aid him in his espionage activities.[3]

Barbara eventually disclosed the ring’s activities to the FBI. After completing a dead drop coordinated with a Soviet operative north of Washington, DC, Walker searched for USD 200,000 that the Soviet operative was supposed to have dropped 5 miles away. He could not find the package, and checked into a local Ramada Inn to regroup. The FBI had arranged a sting. The hotel’s front desk worker lured him out of his room at 3:30 a.m. on May 20, 1985 with a phone call about damage to his van parked in the hotel’s lot, at which point 2 FBI agents apprehended him.[3]

The walker case stunned America as the last major spy case involving Americans was the Julius and Ethel Rosenberg case of the 1950s.

Interestingly, law enforcement apprehended another American citizen named John Walker (full name John Philip Walker Lindh) in November 2001 in Afghanistan for fighting with the Taliban and conspiring to kill U.S. citizens abroad.[6]

[edit] Richard Kelly Smyth

Richard Kelly Smyth was an American physicist, businessman, and NATO and NASA consultant on aerospace guidance technology. His Huntington Beach, California business, Milco International Incorporated, was a leading contractor to the US government on aerospace technology and an exporter of this technology.[7]

Between January 1980 and December 1982, Smyth allegedly illegally exported 15 shipments of krytons to alleged Israeli intermediary and businessman Arnon Milchan of the Israeli company Heli Trading Company. Milchan then allegedly mediated the transfer of the krytons to the Israeli government.[7]

Milchan also produced the films Pretty Woman, The War of the Roses, LA Confidential, The Devil’s Advocate, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, JFK, and Fight Club. Forbes lists him as the 240th richest person in the world.[8]

Because krytons are electronic switches capable of triggering nuclear explosive devices, the US government deems them munitions and only allows their legal export via a stringent licensing process, though they are central components of common items like copy machines and strobe lights.[7]

Operation Exodus, a US Customs program, was instrumental in Smyth’s capture. Ronald Reagan’s administration designed Operation Exodus to cut off smuggling of technology and goods to Soviet countries and funded the program by taking USD 30 million from the Department of Defense and giving it to Customs.[9]

Law enforcement arrested Smyth in May 1985. While awaiting trial he fled with his wife. Law enforcement discovered the couple in Malaga, Spain in July of 2001. After his extradition to the US, he plead guilty in December of 2001 to violating the Arms Export Control Act and to making false statements to US Customs. His sentence included 40 months in prison and a USD 20,000 fine, though he was immediately eligible for parole because of his old age. He was 72 at the time of sentencing.[10]

[edit] Sharon W. Scranage

Sharon W. Scranage was a young American CIA secretary serving in Accra, the capital of Ghana.[11] The Ghanaian government used Michael Agbotui Soussoudis, a young male intelligence officer to target her, romance her, and solicit US intelligence from her.[12]

Scranage disclosed to Soussoudis the identities of undercover CIA agents working in Ghana as well as plans for a coup against the Ghanaian government by dissidents.[13] Soussoudis then passed the information to Ghanaian intelligence chief and Marxist Kojo Tsikata, who then passed it to Cuba, Libya, and East Germany.[14]

According to a study by the Adjudicative Desk Reference, the US government’s guidelines for a person’s eligibility for access to classified information, it is not uncommon for foreign intelligence agents, especially in Communist nations, to use the promise of sex and romance against female operatives to gain trust and obtain information.[15]

On September 27, 1985 Scranage began her sentence of 5 years in prison for espionage and violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act. She earned parole after serving 18 months.[16] Soussoudis received a sentence of 20 years but permanently left the US in exchange for a suspended sentence.[17]

Congress passed the Intelligence Identities Protection Act in 1982 in response to the murder of Athens, Greece CIA station chief Richard Welch by Marxist group The 17 November Organization.[18] The legislation made it illegal to disclose the identities of or personal information about intelligence officers.[19]

[edit] Larry Wu-Tai Chin

Larry Wu-Tai Chin was born in Beijing. He began his US government career as translator for the US Army during World War II. He performed the same job for the US Consulate in Shanghai, the State Department, and the CIA’s Foreign Broadcast Information Service.[20]

He spied for China for 30 years. He told the Chinese government Richard Nixon's secret diplomatic goals before Nixon's visit to China, and China was able to strategically prepare for negotiations. Chinese intelligence agents then passed Chin’s secrets on to the Vietnamese.[21]

China paid Chin between USD 500,000 and 1 million, with which he accumulated 29 rental properties and Las Vegas gambling debts totaling more than USD 96,000.[22] Chin channeled his compulsive gambling habit and used it as a way to hide his espionage profits.[23]

After federal district judge Robert Mehrige found him guilty of spying for China on February 7, 1986,[24] Chin suffocated himself with a plastic bag in his Virginia prison cell.[25]

[edit] Jonathan Jay Pollard

Jonathan Jay Pollard was the son of a microbiology professor. He grew up in South Bend, Indiana[26] As a child he loved to read and tell stories. His family lost 70 relatives during the Holocaust, and he dreamed of avenging these wrongs.[27] He attended Stanford University where he falsely boasted that Israeli intelligence paid his tuition and his father worked for the CIA.[28]

After leaving graduate school at Tufts University, he became a US Naval intelligence officer in 1979. He earned a promotion in 1984 and immediately passed satellite imagery and CIA reports to Israeli agents, unsolicited. Apart from cash, he received jewelry and a honeymoon on the Orient Express for his wife Anne Henderson.[28]

Pollard admitted to selling materials that could fill a 10-foot by 6-foot by 6-foot space to the Israeli Defense Ministry, who then passed those secrets along to the Soviets.[29]

Pollard’s need to constantly handle classified materials drew too much attention, and law enforcement arrested him when he was walking out of his office on November 18, 1985. He plead guilty to espionage and received a sentence of life in prison on June 4, 1986.[30] After Anne served her 5-year sentence for unauthorized possession of government documents, she divorced Pollard.[28]

In April 2008, federal prosecutors accused 84-year-old retired US Army engineer and New Jersey resident Ben-Ami Kadish of passing intelligence to an Israeli official who also received information from Pollard.[31]

[edit] Ronald William Pelton

Ronald William Pelton was born in 1942. After attending Indiana University, he joined the US Air Force and analyzed SIGINT in Pakistan. He had a photographic memory.[32]

He began working for the National Security Agency as a communications specialist in 1966. He personally went to the Soviet embassy in Washington, DC and volunteered his to spy after he retired in 1979.[33]

He eventually disclosed to the Soviets intelligence about Operation Ivy Bells, a plan to monitor underwater Soviet communication cables.[34] At the time, the information Pelton had disclosed was so sensitive that CIA director Bill Casey and NSA director William Odom asked the media to report any leaked information to them before going to press.[34]

Alleged Soviet defector Vitaly Yurchenko was a KGB colonel who revealed Pelton’s identity during an interrogation by the CIA.[32]

Pelton received three concurrent life sentences in 1986.[33]

[edit] Randy Miles Jeffries

Randy Miles Jeffries worked as a clerk for the FBI from 1978 to 1980. In 1983 he received a one-year suspended sentence for heroin possession and attended rehab. A social service worker referred him to Acme Reporting Company, a stenography and reporting company that frequently contracted with federal agencies. Here Jeffries was responsible for photocopying, bundling, and handling classified documents and later disposing of them, unshredded, in a dumpster.[35]

On December 14, 1985, Jeffries conspired with a coworker to attempt to sell to the Soviet Military Office in northwest Washington three classified documents including one titled “US House of Representatives, Department of Defense Command Control Communication and Intelligence Programs, C31, Closed Session, Subcommittee on Armed Services, Washington, DC.” At 4:45 p.m. he hand-delivered sample documents to the Soviet Military Office. He returned on December 17, at which time Soviet agents paid him USD 60. On December 20 he met with an undercover FBI agent who was posing as a Soviet. Law enforcement arrested Jeffries later that night.[35]

A subsequent federal audit of Acme Reporting Company revealed that their security system was a total failure. Background checks were inadequate, employees worked on classified materials from home, and no proper document destruction procedures were in place.[35]

In response to the Jeffries case, the Defense Investigative Service started Project Insight in 1968 to gather and analyze industrial security data and develop recommendations for new techniques.[35]

On March 13, 1986 a federal judge sentenced Jeffries to 3 to 9 years imprisonment.

[edit] Edward Lee Howard

Edward Lee Howard was a Boy Scout, an altar boy, and a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer who served in Colombia. After a period spent doing international development work with USAID, Howard went to work for the CIA in 1981.[36]

On May 2 1983, the CIA fired him after noting discrepancies in his polygraph tests regarding past drug use and petty theft. Howard promptly made drunken phone calls to the US embassy in Moscow using a phone line he knew Soviets were monitoring, and thereby exposed his former supervisor as a CIA employee.[36]

In 1984 Howard allegedly sold US intelligence to KGB agents in Austria. In 1985 he vanished into the New Mexico desert after Soviet defector and KGB deputy chief Vitaly Yurchenko gave the FBI information which caused them to heavily surveil Howard. Howard escaped with the help of his wife Mary who drove home from the desert with a dummy decoy in the passenger seat of the car, and played a recording of Howard’s voice on a phone line she knew the FBI was tapping.[37]

Howard defected to Russia where the Soviets granted him asylum, an apartment, and a new identity.[37]

Howard died on July 12, 2002 at the age of 50 according to former KGB chief Vladimir A. Kryuchkov and State Department spokesman Richard A. Boucher.[37]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Petersen, Julie K. “Understanding Surveillance Technologies: Spy Devices, Their Origins & Applications.” Boca Raton: CRC Press, 2001.
  2. ^ a b c d About the National Security Archive
  3. ^ a b c Family of Spies: The John Walker Jr. Spy Case
  4. ^ a b c John Walker
  5. ^ Family of Spies: The John Walker Jr. Spy Case
  6. ^ http://www.infoplease.com/biography/var/johnwalker.html
  7. ^ a b c Media: The Great Krytron Caper
  8. ^ Arnon Milchan, The World's Richest People - Forbes.com
  9. ^ U.S. Customs Today - January 2002 - "Shield America" against terrorism
  10. ^ BBC News | MIDDLE EAST | US nuclear parts trafficker sentenced
  11. ^ CTC International Group Limited
  12. ^ Mendez, Antonio and Jonna and Bruce Henderson. "Spy Dust: Two Masters of Disguise Reveal the Tools and Operations That Helped Win the Cold War." New York: Simon and Schuster, 2003.
  13. ^ U.S. Grand Jury Indicts An Ex-C.I.A. Employee - New York Times
  14. ^ Daily Kos: Sharon Scranage: 5 years for Violating Intelligence ID Act
  15. ^ http://www.smdc.army.mil/ADR/sexbeh/sexF.htm
  16. ^ Spy Cases - U.S. - Other - M-Z
  17. ^ What Can You Say About A Spy? - TIME
  18. ^ 17 November Organization
  19. ^ The Intelligence Identities Protection Act must go. - By Christopher Hitchens - Slate Magazine
  20. ^ frontline: from china with love: china spying: four chinese espionage investigations | PBS
  21. ^ A spy who changed history - US News and World Report
  22. ^ http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,980275,00.html
  23. ^ http://www.smdc.army.mil/adr/gambling/gamt.htm
  24. ^ Conviction Upheld for a Spy In C.I.A. Who Killed Himself - New York Times
  25. ^ Convicted Spy Is Determined To Have Died of Asphyxiation - New York Times
  26. ^ THE SPY FORM SOUTH BEND - New York Times
  27. ^ Jonathan Jay Pollard
  28. ^ a b c NOVA Online | Secrets, Lies, and Atomic Spies | Jonathan Jay Pollard
  29. ^ The Strange Campaign to Secure the Release of Convicted Spy Jonathan Jay Pollard
  30. ^ Spy Cases - U.S. - Pollard - Introduction
  31. ^ Former U.S. army engineer charged in old spy case_English_Xinhua
  32. ^ a b Robert Hanssen - spymuseum.com
  33. ^ a b Spies, Spies Everywhere - TIME
  34. ^ a b CNN.com In-Depth Specials - Inside the NSA
  35. ^ a b c d Department of Defense Security Institute. “Good Security Does Make a Difference: The Case of Randy Miles Jeffries and the Acme Reporting Company.” Security Awareness Bulletin, January 1990/Number 2-90.
  36. ^ a b Peace Corps Online | October 1, 2002: Headlines: Obituaries: Intelligence Issues: COS - Colombia: COS - Dominican Republic: COS - Russia: Spokesman Online: Mysterious life, death of Edward Lee Howard
  37. ^ a b c Edward Lee Howard, 50, Spy Who Escaped to Soviet Haven - New York Times

[edit] External links