Miller Confessed to Passing Document, Agent Testifies

An FBI official called as the prosecution’s last rebuttal witness testified Tuesday that former agent Richard W. Miller confessed an hour after his arrest as a suspected Soviet spy to passing a secret FBI document to Svetlana Ogorodnikova.

The testimony from James Nelson, a high-ranking agent in the FBI’s Los Angeles office, came just before an unusual field trip by jurors in the Miller trial to a Little League ballpark in Westwood that served as a frequent meeting place for Miller and his former Russian paramour.

The purpose of the trip was to allow the jury to watch a reenactment of events on Sept. 26, 1984, when an FBI agent named Paul DeFlores was sitting in his car as Miller and Ogorodnikova returned to the ballpark after a shopping trip in preparation for a planned trip to Eastern Europe to meet with Soviet KGB officials.

Citing testimony from DeFlores that Miller apparently recognized him, the prosecution has claimed that the chance encounter explains why Miller approached his FBI superiors the next day with a voluntary admission that he was secretly involved with Ogorodnikova in an effort to salvage an undistinguished career by penetrating the KGB.

Miller’s lawyers, who agreed to the excursion after U.S. District Judge David V. Kenyon refused to allow the jury to see a filmed reenactment, had argued that it would have been impossible for Miller to have recognized DeFlores in his car that day because the angle of the sun made vision difficult.

Miller, a trench coat covering his handcuffs, watched Tuesday afternoon as the jurors, under Kenyon’s direction, first peered across the parking lot at FBI agent Fred Scott, sitting inside the 1979 Buick previously used by DeFlores, to see if they could make out his facial features.

As Miller watched the reenactment, FBI agents guarded a nearby rooftop. A strong security force of U.S. marshals and Los Angeles police officers was also on guard in the park.

The jury was taken to the park in a Trailways bus, and Miller was driven to the scene separately by U.S. marshals, who kept him in leg shackles during the trip.

Nelson’s testimony focused on a drive from Miller’s home in San Diego County on Oct. 3, 1984, after his arrest on charges of passing secret documents to Ogorodnikova and her husband, Nikolai, who were subsequently convicted of espionage conspiracy.

Asked by U.S. Atty. Robert C. Bonner if he had heard Miller confess to passing a copy of the FBI’s Positive Intelligence Reporting Guide to Ogorodnikova, Nelson responded: “He said he had given it to Svetlana Ogorodnikova. He said he knew it was secret, but that everything passing his desk was classified secret. He said he gave her the document in San Francisco so that she could have some credibility (with officials of the Soviet Consulate.”)

Nelson was the last of half a dozen FBI agents and other witnesses who have testified during the trial that Miller confessed to passing the document. Miller’s lawyers have argued that any admissions by the former agent before his arrest were made only because he was exhausted by his FBI interrogation.

Also among the final government rebuttal witnesses Tuesday was FBI agent Rudolpho Valadez, who told of seeing Miller on the verge of tears in April, 1984, a month before Miller’s first meeting with Ogorodnikova. Valadez said the overweight Miller had just learned that he was going to be suspended without pay for two weeks for failing to meet FBI weight standards.

“He said agent (Richard T.) Bretzing would no longer listen to him, and (P. Bryce) Christensen wouldn’t help him,” Valadez said. “He said they were trying to get him fired, or words to that effect.”

(Bretzing, head of the FBI’s Los Angeles office, is a Mormon bishop. Christensen, an assistant agent in charge and Miller’s former boss on the Soviet counterintelligence squad, is also a Mormon. Miller’s lawyers have charged that Bretzing and Christensen had coddled Miller for years because he was also a Mormon.)

Pressed by Bonner to describe Miller’s demeanor during the April, 1984, meeting, Valadez continued: “His eyes were watery. I said, ‘Don’t let it get to you, R. W. He said something to the effect, ‘Oh, the hell with them. They’re going to fire me anyway.’ ”

Kenyon is to deliver jury instructions today in Miller’s espionage case, and the defense and prosecution are scheduled to give their closing statements Thursday and Friday.