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
Brookings Institution annex at 1755 Massachusetts Ave., NW. Suite 500 in
Washington, D.C. 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. As a child, 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, he was arrested for robbing a gas station, and he admitted to six other burglaries. In court his older brother, a
U.S. Navy petty officer, urged the judge to give him probation so that he might enlist in the Navy and gain discipline. Walker enlisted in the Navy in 1956. He later recruited his wife Barbara, his friend
Jerry Whitworth, his older brother Arthur, and his son Michael to aid him in his espionage activities. Between January 1980 and December 1982, Smyth allegedly illegally exported 15 shipments of 810
krytrons total to alleged Israeli-intermediary, businessman (and film producer)
Arnon Milchan of the Israeli company Heli Trading Company. Milchan then allegedly mediated the transfer of the krytrons to the Israeli government. Smyth was arrested in May 1985 but he fled with his wife while awaiting trial. The couple was discovered in
Málaga, Spain in July 2001. After his extradition to the US, he pleaded guilty in December 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 $20,000 fine, though he was immediately eligible for parole because of his age. He was 72 at the time of sentencing. The high drama of the covert relationship between Smyth, Hollywood producer
Arnon Milchan, and the entire episode that became known as the Krytron Affair, was documented in the 2011 book
Confidential, The Life of Secret Agent Turned Hollywood Tycoon Arnon Milchan.
Sharon Scranage Sharon Scranage was a young American
CIA secretary serving in
Accra, the capital of
Ghana. The Ghanaian government used Michael Agbotui Soussoudis, a young male intelligence officer to target her, romance her, and solicit U.S. intelligence from her. Scranage disclosed to Soussoudis the identities of CIA informants in Ghana as well as plans for a coup against the Ghanaian government by dissidents. Soussoudis then passed the information to Ghanaian intelligence chief and Marxist Kojo Tsikata, who then passed it to
Cuba,
Libya, and
East Germany. Eight Ghanaian citizens who had been spying for the CIA were arrested and one was allegedly killed. According to a study by the Adjudicative Desk Reference, the U.S. 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 operatives to gain trust and obtain information. On September 27, 1985 Scranage began her sentence of five years in prison for espionage and violating the
Intelligence Identities Protection Act, legislation that made it illegal to disclose the identities of or personal information about intelligence officers. She earned parole after serving 18 months. Soussoudis received a sentence of 20 years but permanently left the U.S. in exchange for a suspended sentence.
Larry Wu-Tai Chin Larry Wu-Tai Chin was born in Beijing. He began his U.S. government career as translator for the
U.S. Army during
World War II. He performed the same job for the U.S. consulate in Shanghai, the
State Department, and the CIA's
Foreign Broadcast Information Service. 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. China paid Chin between $500,000 and $1 million, with which he accumulated 29 rental properties and Las Vegas gambling debts totaling more than $96,000. Chin channeled his compulsive gambling habit and used it as a way to hide his espionage profits. After federal district judge Robert Mehrige found him guilty of spying for China on February 7, 1986, Chin suffocated himself with a plastic bag in his Virginia prison cell.
Jonathan Pollard Jonathan Pollard grew up in South Bend, Indiana. His family lost 70 relatives during
the Holocaust, and he dreamed of avenging these wrongs. He attended
Stanford University where he falsely boasted that Israeli intelligence paid his tuition and his father worked for the CIA. After leaving graduate school at
Tufts University, he became a civilian U.S.
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. Pollard's need to constantly handle classified materials drew too much attention, and he was arrested by the FBI on November 18, 1985. He pleaded guilty to espionage and received a sentence of life in prison on June 4, 1986. After Anne served her 5-year sentence for unauthorized possession of government documents, she divorced Pollard.
Ronald Pelton Ronald Pelton was born in 1942. After attending
Indiana University, he joined the
U.S. Air Force and analyzed
SIGINT in
Pakistan. He had a photographic memory. He began working for the
National Security Agency as a communications specialist in 1966. He personally went to the Soviet embassy in Washington, D.C. and volunteered to spy after he retired in 1979. He eventually disclosed to the Soviets intelligence about
Operation Ivy Bells, a plan to monitor underwater Soviet communication cables. At the time, the information Pelton had disclosed was so sensitive that CIA director William Casey and NSA director William Odom asked the media to report any leaked information to them before going to press. 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, D.C.” 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 $60. On December 20 he met with an undercover FBI agent who was posing as a Soviet. Law enforcement arrested Jeffries later that night. 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 U.S. embassy in Moscow using a phone line he knew Soviets were monitoring, and thereby exposed his former supervisor as a CIA employee. Howard defected to Russia where the Soviets granted him asylum, an apartment, and a new identity. 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. == See also ==