Spy, Spy, Spies

Late one night last April, a Russian-born employee of a U.S. intelligence agency climbed the steps to his suburban Washington apartment. He fumbled with the key--and froze. From the darkness behind him came a tiny rustle of clothing. Then a voice rasped his name.* The man whirled, faced a stocky stranger in a trench coat who stood back in the shadows, his powerful arms outstretched. Again the stranger spoke in Russian: "Don't you know me? I am your brother Volodya." The brothers had been apart for 23 years. Vanya would not have immediately recognized Volodya even in broad daylight. At first he was incredulous, then suspicious. But Volodya convinced Vanya by rattling off a series of childhood experiences that the brothers had shared. The two wound up in a tearful bear hug on the landing.

He Understood. From there the plot thickened--and sickened. A dapper little fellow in a blue trench coat showed up at the apartment a few moments later, introduced himself to Vanya as "Ivan Ivanovich, your brother's driver." He added cryptically: "We have been trying to meet you for two days. We wanted to see you alone--to avoid trouble. You understand?" Vanya was pretty sure he understood. When the pair left, he called the FBI.

Two nights later, Volodya, Ivan and Vanya met again. Hidden all around were FBI men, eavesdropping, shooting movies and taking still pictures They quickly identified Ivan the Driver as Gennadi G. Sevastyanov, 33--a Russian "diplomat" carried on the rolls of the Soviet embassy as a "cultural attache." He was actually a member of KGB--the Soviet secret police, trying to recruit a spy. "Which side are you on--ours or the Americans?" he asked Vanya. "You could better your position in life if you would cooperate." He quizzed Vanya about his intelligence work, told him candidly: "We want operational data, not classified material. We want to penetrate your office." Brother Volodya, an employee of the Scientific Institute for Cattle Raising and Animal Husbandry in Frunze (Kiriz Republic), added his own bit. He urged his brother to come home but added: "I think you understand that before you can return you must show your appreciation and gratitude." The trio met once more in early May --again well chaperoned by the FBI.

Vanya brought presents for the family in Russia, for Volodya was due to go home as he had come--disguised as a Soviet government official allegedly on temporary duty with the embassy in Washington. Sevastyanov, apparently convinced he had Vanya signed up as a spy, spilled out a list of secret passwords, meeting places and directions by which Vanya would fall easily into the Soviet spy network in Washington.

After that session, Vanya returned to his U.S. intelligence job, and Volodya went back to Russia unhindered because he was considered "a helpless tool of the secret police." Vanya never saw Sevastyanov again.

Last week the U.S. State Department released the pictures of the Soviet recruiting sessions, showing Sevastyanov hard at work at espionage, and demanded that he leave the country pronto. He did--the 27th Russian diplomat declared persona non grata since 1950.

The day after Sevastyanov's spydom was revealed, FBI raids in Washington and New York netted four more spies-all charged with passing on to Moscow information about U.S. missile bases, troop movements and harbor defenses.

In New York, agents nabbed Ivan D Egorov, 41, a natty, $10,000-a-year U.N. Secretariat staffer, and his wife Alexandra, 39. The pair put up a vicious battle when agents arrived to take them in, were finally hauled bodily from their modest apartment--he in handcuffs, she bound hand and foot. And in Washington, FBI men found a strange pair (still unidentified at week's end) passing as "Robert Keistutis Baltch" and "Joy Ann Garber." They had taken the names of a couple of innocent living Americans: a Roman Catholic priest in Amsterdam, N.Y., and a housewife in Norwalk, Conn. Baltch and his "Joy Ann" lived together in a $90-a-month Washington apartment. He taught French at George Washington University; she was a hairdresser--although not a very good one, according to comments from customers in the shop where she worked.

Magnetic Matchboxes. Besides these tour--all of whom face possible death penalties--the FBI implicated three other Russians in the ring: Alexei Ivanovich Galikin and Petr Egorovich Maslannikov (both were associated with U.N. missions, and both fled the U.S.

three months ago), and someone the FBI identified only as "a known Soviet intelligence agent."

The FBI had watched this busy group for months, frequently looked on as the spies skulked about sticking magnetic matchboxes full of information onto metal railings for other ring members to retrieve. Yet, of the information they collected, a Justice Department official said airily last week: "Generally it wasn't worth very much at all."

* The employee was identified officially only by the pseudonym "Vanya," or "John"; in photographs his face was blocked out. His employer Is identified as an "affiliate" of the Central Intelligence Agency.

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