Intelligence

DATE=07/06/01

TYPE=BACKGROUND REPORT

TITLE=ESPIONAGE TODAY

NUMBER=5-49747

BYLINE=ED WARNER

DATELINE=WASHINGTON

CONTENT=

VOICED AT:

INTRO: F-B-I agent Robert Hanssen is the latest in a series of spies who have been caught working for Russia and the former Soviet Union. How many more spies are there? How serious is the problem, and can it be remedied? V-O-A's Ed Warner asked two longtime analysts for their views.

TEXT: The Cold War is over, but spying continues. That is the opinion of John Pike, the director of Global Security.Org, a defense and intelligence policy organization:

/// PIKE ACT 1 ///

If anything, with the end of the Cold War and increasing focus on economic and industrial espionage, the United States may be a more attractive target today than it was during the Cold War. The Russians, the Chinese, other countries are very interested in stealing America's economic secrets to help their economy. So I think the F-B-I is going to continue to have its hands full trying to catch those spies.

/// END ACT ///

The motivation for spying has changed dramatically since the end of the cold war. It is no longer ideology but money. Two of the most damaging spies, the F-B-I's Robert Hanssen and the C-I-A's Aldrich Ames, betrayed their country for financial gain.

Mr. Pike says they were hard to catch because they worked in counter-intelligence:

/// PIKE ACT 2 ///

They knew how to hide and, in fact, they were able to keep tabs on any efforts there might have been to try to find them. Most run-of-the-mill spies are active for a much shorter period of time and are caught much more quickly, but this inside penetration within the counter-intelligence offices is the biggest threat because it is the hardest to catch and the most damaging.

/// END ACT ///

Russia has fewer spies than during the Cold War, says Herb Romerstein, author of "The Venona Secrets," a book based on information from Soviet archives and from a code broken by the United States.

Mr. Romerstein says Moscow does not have as much money to offer recruits, but it still has an extensive apparatus, now rivaled by China's:

/// ROMERSTEIN ACT 1 ///

What China wants is technology, things that might be useful for their military. And so they are prepared to spend a lot of money for that. The Russians want both technology, which they often cannot use because they do not have the money to utilize it, and political information. What is going to happen? Who is going to do what? Of course, there is the counter-intelligence aspect. They want to know what Russians may be helping foreign governments obtain information in Russia.

/// END ACT ///

What must be kept in mind, says Mr. Romerstein, is that even low-level spying can reveal the identity of U-S agents and lead to their deaths. He believes U-S counter-intelligence efforts have declined over the years, as illustrated by the failure to catch Aldrich Ames despite his lavish spending habits:

/// ROMERSTEIN ACT 2 ///

They knew that he had bought a very expensive house for cash, and he explained he got his money from his in-laws in Colombia. The first reaction should have been: how did they get the money and do they have money? The answer was his in-laws did not have a lot of money. So either Ames was spying and getting money from a foreign intelligence service or he was running drugs. They should have been alert to that, and they were not.

/// END ACT ///

But Mr. Romerstein cites one little known success story of recent years. A husband-wife team who worked for the U-S Defense Department sold secrets to East Germany until it collapsed. They then prepared to work for the Soviet Union, when that, too, fell:

/// ROMERSTEIN ACT 3 ///

So they were hunting around for somebody to spy for, and they decided that the new government of South Africa would be interested in their information. They made contact with a South African Communist Party official. What they didn't know was that the F-B-I had intercepted the communications, having identified them through the files in East Germany. Instead of meeting with a South African intelligence officer, they met with an F-B-I special agent, who pretended to be a South African.

/// END ACT ///

Mr. Romerstein says these last remaining anachronistic Communist spies are now in prison. But if Communist spies are gone, others equally inventive have taken their place, requiring inventive ways to catch them. (Signed)

NEB/EW/JWH