Agent Recounts Call From Accused Spy

Accused Soviet spy Svetlana Ogorodnikova once told the assistant head of the FBI’s Los Angeles office that she had slept with then-Soviet President Yuri Andropov during a 1983 visit to Moscow, the FBI official said Tuesday.

P. Bryce Christensen, former head of the Soviet intelligence squad in the FBI’s Los Angeles office, said Ogorodnikova made the claim during a “rambling” phone call in July, 1983, during an apparent separation from her husband.

“She indicated she had been sleeping in various churches because she didn’t have a place to reside,” Christensen said. “She further indicated that her husband had told her she was no good and should commit suicide.”

6th Prosecution Witness

Christensen testified as the sixth prosecution witness in the Los Angeles espionage trial of Ogorodnikova and her husband, Nikolai, who are accused of conspiring to obtain secret documents from former FBI counterintelligence agent Richard W. Miller.

During the conversation, Christensen said, Ogorodnikova also claimed that FBI agent John Hunt, who had been using her as an FBI informant the previous year, had threatened to kill her. She also claimed that Hunt had promised to leave his wife and marry her, Christensen added.

Ogorodnikova, a Russian immigrant who arrived in Los Angeles with her husband in 1973, had been recruited by Hunt as an FBI “asset” in 1982, but Hunt had told her late that year that she was not supplying him with useful information. He closed the FBI’s informant file on Ogorodnikova in January, 1983.

Christensen said she told him in their phone conversation that she had valuable information on a “very dangerous” man in the Soviet Consulate in San Francisco and wanted to meet with him. Christensen said he declined the invitation, saying he could not fit a meeting into his FBI schedule.

‘Rather Rambling’

“She was rather rambling,” he recounted. “At points, she was incoherent, and I got the impression she was angry.”

Christensen’s testimony came after final questioning of Hunt, who testified for seven days about his relationship with Ogorodnikova. Hunt, 53, who retired from the FBI in November, had earlier described his reaction when he learned of the allegations about him that Ogorodnikova had made to Christensen.

“I was shocked. I was very angry and, I guess, disappointed that she would do this,” Hunt said.

Hunt’s wife, Earleen, was also called as a prosecution witness to support Hunt’s denial that he had ever reciprocated any sexual advances from Ogorodnikova. She testified that her husband had immediately informed her of a June 6, 1982, incident outside a Hollywood cocktail lounge when Ogorodnikova allegedly threw herself into Hunt’s arms, saying: “I love you. Can we go someplace?”

A gag order issued by U.S. District Judge David V. Kenyon banning comment by lawyers and witnesses kept Hunt from discussing his emotions after he was finally excused from the witness stand, but the retired agent was visibly relieved as he shook hands with former FBI colleagues and prepared to return to the Seattle area, where the Hunts now live.

“It’s a relief to have this over,” he was heard to remark. “This has been hanging over us for a long time.”

Miller, the first FBI agent to be charged with espionage, will stand trial after the proceedings against the Ogorodnikovs conclude.