Airman Held in Scheme to Sell Secrets to Soviets

An Air Force enlisted man stationed at a highly sensitive reconnaissance base near Marysville has been arrested and charged with trying to sell secrets to the Soviets, military spokesmen said Tuesday.

Airman 1st Class Bruce D. Ott, 25, was arrested in Davis last Wednesday and was accused under military law of “attempted unauthorized release of national defense information,” military officials said.

Government sources in Washington said agents intercepted the operation before any information changed hands.

Ott is being charged with a military code section that carries a maximum penalty of death, according to his defense lawyer, Capt. Jordan Weitberg. However, military prosecutors would not say precisely which section Ott is accused of violating, and no reason was given for withholding announcement of the arrest until Tuesday.

Home of Spy Planes

The airman is stationed at Beale Air Force Base, near Marysville, the only installation in the world from which the highly sophisticated SR-71 spy planes fly.

The SR-71s fly at the edge of space and at speeds of up to 2,000 miles an hour. Nicknamed “Blackbird,” the Lockheed-built aircraft apparently are used in the most sensitive intelligence missions. The planes carry sophisticated cameras and sensors and are thought to be capable of photographing more than 100,000 square miles in an hour.

Beale also is a base for U-2 spy planes.

Ott, who had been living in Yuba City, was married a month ago and was set to be transferred either to Iceland or Greenland, an aunt of Ott said in a telephone interview from her home in Erie, Pa.

Originally from Waterford, Pa., a suburb of Erie, Ott enlisted in the Air Force in December, 1983. He had been a clerk since April, 1984, in the main administration office of the 1st Strategic Reconnaissance Squadron at Beale Air Force Base, said Sgt. Daryl E. Green, a spokesman at Beale.

Security Clearance

Ott had a middle-level security clearance--that of “secret.” Sources in Washington said Ott approached Soviet agents and offered to sell secret and top-secret documents.

Beale spokesmen would not, however, disclose the type of information to which Ott had access.

The airman was arrested after Sacramento-based FBI agents, working with Air Force Special Investigations officers, intercepted him after his attempts to contact suspected Soviet agents, Washington sources said.

The investigation was initiated by the FBI as part of a counterintelligence effort aimed at guarding posts that are thought to be targets of espionage by the Soviets and other foreign nations.

Under an agreement between the departments of Defense and Justice, the military will prosecute active military personnel suspected of involvement in such activity.

Ott was the latest person arrested in a spate of recent espionage cases. In San Francisco, former Navy communications specialist Jerry A. Whitworth is awaiting trial on charges that he helped pass information to a friend, John Walker, for transmission to the Soviets. Walker, also a retired Navy communications specialist, admitted spying for the Soviet Union.

Four other past or present government workers or intelligence agency officers have been charged in recent months with spying for an array of foreign nations, including Israel, China and the Soviet Union.

Possible Military Trial

Unlike other people accused in the last year of espionage, Ott faces trial in a military court. Also unlike the others, who faced trial in civilian federal courts, where there is no death penalty, Ott could face a maximum penalty of death, his lawyer said.

“That is not necessarily the likely penalty,” added Weitberg, Ott’s lawyer. Weitberg said, however, that Ott is charged with a military code section passed by Congress last November in reaction to the Walker spy case that calls for the death penalty for anyone convicted of “lurking as a spy or acting as a spy” in or near a military base.

Maj. James Swanson, the chief legal adviser at Beale, refused to say whether military officials had charged or were considering charging Ott with this particular code section.

Ott, who is being held in isolation without bail at Beale, has not yet appeared before a judge or entered a plea.

The next step in the legal process will be to hold a formal inquiry, one akin to a grand jury proceeding, to determine whether Ott should face a court-martial--a formal military trial--Swanson said.

Characterized by Aunt

In Erie, the suspect’s aunt, Adelaide Ott, described her blond, blue-eyed nephew as a “very, very nice boy,” and an A-student in high school, who is well-read and keenly interested in history.

“I can’t believe that (he was arrested),” the aunt said. “It is the first time anything like that has ever happened in our family.”

Ott’s parents flew to California to be with their son, who is the eldest of three children. Ott had planned to be married this spring, but moved up the date to Dec. 27, after he received transfer orders, his aunt said.

In Yuba City, Ott’s landlady, June Young, called him a “quiet man” who paid his rent on time. He has lived in the Sugar House Apartments since June, Young said.

Dan Morain reported from San Francisco and Ronald J. Ostrow from Washington. Times staff writer Mark Gladstone at Beale Air Force Base also contributed to this article.