Petty Officer Arrested in Sale of Secret Documents

A 24-year-old Navy enlisted man at Point Mugu Naval Air Station was arrested on suspicion of selling classified government documents, a Navy spokesman said Monday.

Third Class Petty Officer Robert Dean Haguewood of Springfield, Mo., was arrested by the Naval Investigative Service on March 4, about 30 minutes after he allegedly was observed selling a portion of a confidential document, said Lt. Cmdr. Don Lewis, a public affairs officer at Point Mugu.

The document, a training manual that dealt with how to load weapons on aircraft wings, carried the lowest of the Navy’s three secret ratings.

“This is not a spy case,” said a Navy spokesman in Washington. “Spying has to involve a foreign national and it appears Haguewood was trying to sell some information to a local person and make some money.”

Haguewood, an aviation ordnanceman who worked with bombs and other weapons, joined the Navy in 1979 and was transferred in November, 1984, to Point Mugu, about 50 miles northwest of Los Angeles. He had a secret security clearance, the Navy’s second highest rating.

Haguewood had approached a man in Oxnard and mentioned he was trying to find a buyer for some classified information, Lewis said. The individual then contacted the Oxnard police.

An undercover officer from the Oxnard police department arranged to buy the information and while the alleged transaction took place at an undisclosed location off base, they were under surveillance, Lewis said. Half of the document was sold, with the other half to be delivered later.

When Haguewood returned to the base he was arrested. He is being held at Point Mugu and is still awaiting charges by the Navy, Lewis said.

“This was an extremely random incident and it doesn’t appear that anyone else is involved,” Lewis said. “Maybe all the recent publicity about spies and the big money they sold information for caused a young man to see some easy money out there.”

In the wake of recent spy arrests, the Navy has become increasingly vigilant, said Cmdr. Kendell Pease, a Navy spokesman.

“We are aware of our vulnerability, not only in the loss of spare parts, but with information,” Pease said. “As a result we’ve tried to involve the local authorities, especially around naval installations. It’s intensified in the last year or two and it’s a deterrent. And this case proves it.”

Other officers participating in the undercover operation were from the Port Hueneme Police Department, the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department and the FBI.

The Navy’s Pacific Missile Test Center at Point Mugu has conducted tests of the new Tomahawk cruise missiles during the past few years. The Navy has launched the Tomahawk from submarines and surface ships in the 35,000-square-mile test range, aiming them at land and sea targets.