No Entry

"The KGB was here!" When that cry, or versions of it, echoed through the U.S. embassy in Moscow last March, horrified security officials reacted swiftly. Certain that two Marine guards had let Soviet agents prowl through the building and plant listening devices, authorities closed the electronically shielded meeting-room "bubble," tore out cryptographic and other communications gear and sent messages to Washington by courier through Frankfurt. Those steps, as well as a global investigation of the Marine guard force, have cost U.S. taxpayers more than $100 million. But last week one senior Marine officer concluded that the alleged penetration of the embassy "just didn't happen at all."

The turnaround was based on several weeks of intensive interrogation of Marine Sergeant Clayton Lonetree, who was convicted of espionage in August. A military jury found that Lonetree disclosed the names of CIA agents in Moscow after being seduced by a woman working for both the embassy and the KGB. Yet Lonetree vigorously denied having allowed spies into the embassy, and agents of the Naval Investigative Service had no strong evidence to the contrary. Their claims were based on a detailed statement by Corporal Arnold Bracy that he and Lonetree allowed the KGB to enter when the two worked the same guard shifts. Bracy recanted immediately, saying the NIS investigators had coerced him into signing the statement, and he was never prosecuted.

In September, Lonetree agreed to cooperate with investigators in exchange for the possibility of a five-year reduction of his 30-year sentence. The Navy expected him finally to admit to the embassy spying. Instead, Lonetree's interrogation, which included polygraph tests, has convinced top-ranking officials that he has been telling the truth in denying that he let Soviets into the embassy. Said one investigator: "We can't shake his story."

The shrinking spy scandal baffled one high White House official, who asked in frustration, "What's up here?" Sighed Maine's William Cohen, ranking Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee: "We may just never know for sure."

If Lonetree is telling the truth, then Bracy's original confession may indeed have been coerced. If so, someone ought to be investigating the investigators. The entire probe will be reviewed by Rear Admiral John Gordon, who only last September was appointed chief of the Naval Security and Investigative Command.