Chicago Tribune
To catch a spy
By John Diamond
Washington Bureau
December 9, 1999WASHINGTON--U.S. counterintelligence officials Thursday began a detailed examination of a Russian bugging operation in the State Department's seventh-floor conference room, just down the hall from Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's office.
Critical for federal investigators is to determine who planted the highly sophisticated listening device and transmitting equipment--the first bug ever discovered inside the State Department.
The device would have required more than a few moments to install.
"This was not the kind of thing where you could just be passing through with your three-piece suit and briefcase, and excuse yourself to go to the bathroom, and come back a few minutes later with the job done," a U.S. official familiar with the case said. "It would require some effort."
Neil Gallagher, the FBI's counterintelligence chief, said, "It's just not slapped on here. . . . The ordinary person wouldn't see it."
Although the conference room is not attached to Albright's office suite, she and other senior officials regularly use it.
"Significant and highly sensitive information was discussed in that room," said a congressional staffer who was briefed on the investigation.
While the investigation of the eavesdropping has been going on since summer, only now after the arrest of a Russian diplomat can federal officials pick apart the listening device and interview State Department employees who may have information about how conference room could have been breached.
The case underscores that spying between the former Cold War adversaries continues unabated amid disagreements between the U.S. and Russia on arms control, missile defense, Balkan policy and Chechnya.
"This incident by itself sends a strong message that there is a very aggressive Russian intelligence presence operating inside the United States," Gallagher said at a State Department news conference.
The slimmest of leads-- suspicious behavior by a diplomat outside the State Department last summer--tipped off U.S. investigators to the Russian bugging effort.
Senior FBI and State Department security officials Thursday proudly described how they detected and shut down the Russian operation. But they were unable to explain how Russia got the bug into the building, nor could they address how many secrets the tiny device may have transmitted.
The penetration came at a time when the State Department's own security officials and congressional overseers have decried lax security procedures in the building.
The House Intelligence Committee announced it will hold hearings on the spy case to examine "the (State) Department's apparent inability to protect sensitive and classified information from serious compromise."
Word of the case broke late Wednesday, hours after the FBI detained Russian diplomatic attache Stanislav Borisovic Gusev near his parked car outside the State Department. Gusev, who entered the United States in March, has been under constant surveillance since mid-summer, when he was spotted loitering around the State Department building, a few blocks west of the White House.
A team of FBI counterintelligence officials who were working around the State Department on another assignment noticed his suspicious behavior--parking and reparking his car, among other things. They were able to identify Gusev as a known Russian intelligence agent and quickly guessed that he was running some sort of eavesdropping operation.
Gallagher described Gusev's movements as "crude." Outside experts on intelligence issues said he was downright clumsy.
A U.S. official familiar with Russian spy operations said, "Their tradecraft lately has not been particularly good," but he added that "they must have done some things extraordinarily well to get the device planted."
The placing of the bug was masterful. Routine sweeps of the State Department had revealed nothing. But once alerted, officials conducted a comprehensive search and found the device planted inside the conference room. Gusev apparently monitored transmissions with receiving equipment installed in his car, an embassy sedan with diplomatic plates.
Investigators now are combing through lists of official visitors to the State Department. Gusev's name has not come up, but Russian officials are inside the building frequently, particularly on the seventh floor where formal receptions are held.
However, because of the sophistication with which the bug and transmitter were installed, investigators are concerned the job may have been done by a workman hired by the Russians and posing as a contractor.
The bugging incident comes on top of a series of problems that led the State Department's own inspector general to issue a classified report sharply critical of security, particularly the handling of classified documents. Last year, an unidentified person managed to walk into a seventh-floor office reception area, pick up a stack of documents and walk out.
"This crack in the protective shield around the State Department poses a direct threat to U.S. interests and to our internal operations," said Rep. Porter Goss (R-Fla.), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.
Rep. Julian Dixon (D-Calif.), ranking Democrat on the committee, said stopping the loss of secrets was the top priority, but he said "it is obvious that there have been security problems at the Department of State, and it is imperative to learn how this break occurred."
Asked how the bug escaped detection in routine security sweeps, David Carpenter, assistant secretary of state for diplomatic security, declined to say whether the bugged room was regularly checked.
Gallagher, the FBI official in charge of the probe, called the case "a classic counter-intelligence operation."
Hoping to learn who planted the bug, "we left the device in place," Gallagher said. "We took steps to minimize any loss that would result (from) its continued presence in the State Department."
Though one intelligence official called the investigation "extremely close-hold," Albright, President Clinton and key congressional leaders were told of the probe, Gallagher indicated.
Gusev made about 30 visits to the streets outside the State Department, always driving a sedan with diplomatic plates identifiable as issued to the Russian Embassy. The FBI concluded that Gusev was using guesswork in timing his visits. There was no evidence indicating he had a mole within the department providing information on the timing of important meetings in the bugged room.
John Pike of the Federation of American Scientists, a Washington-based intelligence watchdog group, shook his head at Gusev's conspicuous behavior.
"Either this was a deliberate provocation by Russia, or they're not turning spies out the way they used to," Pike said.
The FBI said it didn't act until it had sufficient evidence linking Gusev to the bug. Wednesday happened to be the first time in several days that Gusev made an appearance. He was arrested at 11:34 a.m. outside his car; he had been observed adjusting equipment believed to be used for receiving signals from the transmitter inside the State Department.
By day's end, Gusev, under normal procedures involving diplomats suspected of spying, had been handed over to Russian officials with instructions that he leave the country in 10 days as persona non grata.
"What drove the decision to bring this investigation to closure was the need to ensure that there would be no continued loss of any information," Gallagher said.
U.S. officials insisted the detention of Gusev was not retaliation for an incident last week in Moscow in which Russia ordered the expulsion of a U.S. diplomat after accusing her of seeking military secrets from a Russian citizen.
The woman was identified by Russian officials as Cheri Leberknight, a second secretary in the U.S. Embassy's political section. Gallagher emphasized that the bugging investigation began long before the Leberknight case came to light.
Government officials and outside experts said that bugging may be enjoying something of a revival as a revolution in encryption technology has made many coded electronic signals unbreakable.
"As the range of things that intelligence communities are trying to learn has grown, and as the use of encryption has expanded, interest in this type of bugging operation has grown significantly," said Pike of the Federation of American Scientists.
From the U.S. end, Pike cited the growth of the super-secret Special Collection Service, an arm of the U.S. intelligence community that conducts bug-planting operations overseas.
And the Russians and their predecessors have a long history of using the intelligence-gathering technique.
In 1969, the KGB planted a bug in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee room that operated for four years, according to "The Sword and the Shield," a new book based on KGB archives by British author Christopher Andrew and former KGB official Vasili Mitrokhin.
In the 1950s, the Soviets planted a bug in the U.S. Seal at the American Embassy in Moscow. And a newly constructed U.S. Embassy building in Moscow was found to be riddled with listening devices. David Wise, author of several books on the CIA, said the embassy had been turned into "an eight-story microphone."
"The Cold War is over," Wise said, "but the espionage goes on."