You’re an old Marine and you served in the Embassy in Moscow. I need someone whom I can trust to do a quick and dirty review of this situation, taking perhaps, five or six weeks. Demands have been made for the establishment of commissions to investigate this matter. The issue is ‘white hot’ back in Washington. His name is Lonetree, and another Marine is also involved in this affair. Read also the Spy who loved (to follow) me, other honeypot episodes, and more Moments on espionage.īROWN: is what I would call the “Moscow scandal.” Around midnight one night, I received a phone call from Secretary of State Shultz, who said to me: “Bill, we’ve got a scandal involving a Marine Security Guard assigned to the Embassy in Moscow. Embassy Moscow was assumed to have been so infiltrated that staff took to using children’s “magic slate” writing pads to pass messages back and forth, while the new embassy building was discovered to be “one huge, KGB radio station.” Brown was interviewed by Charles Stuart Kennedy beginning in November 1998. What was initially supposed to be a quick fix turned into an ordeal that took a decade for everyone involved to get over. As Brown notes in his oral history, when the Secretary of State “asks you to do something, you do it.” Brown went straight to Washington to help remedy the problem. Brown was a former Marine who had served in Moscow and was considered a useful resource. Secretary of State George Shultz phoned Ambassador to Thailand Bill Brown, in the middle of the night. Because of his cooperation with authorities, his sentence was reduced to 25 years of which he served nine before being released in February 1996.Ĭhaos ensued as this scandal began to unfold. Marine Corps member ever convicted of espionage.
Lonetree was convicted on multiple counts of turning over classified information, was court-martialed in 1987 and sentenced to 30 years in prison. He was immediately turned over to the Navy Intelligence Service (NIS) and placed under arrest, charged with espionage. On December 14, 1986, Lonetree came forward to the CIA station chief in Vienna and confessed. After he was transferred to Embassy Vienna in 1986, he passed on blueprints of that embassy and burn bags with top secret cables, including on U.S. Lonetree was soon convinced to turn over confidential information, including embassy floor plans. She introduced him to her “Uncle Sasha,” KGB operative Aleksey Yefimov, who asked Lonetree to become a “friend of the Soviet Union.” However, despite the strict non-fraternization (“no frat”) policy imposed on all MSGs in such parts of the world, Lonetree and Seina began a relationship soon after they met. Lonetree was so highly regarded that he was chosen to be part of the Marine unit assigned to provide security for the 1985 summit between Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev and President Ronald Reagan. She worked as a telephone operator and translator for Embassy Moscow but lived a double life as a KGB agent. Marine Security Guard Clayton Lonetree was seduced by a Russian woman, “Violetta Seina,” at the annual Marine Corps Ball in November 1985.
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