Accused Spy’s Girlfriend Tells of Bungled Sale of Secrets

After a hard drinking session last summer, accused spy Ronald W. Pelton was on his way to receive a telephone call that would have netted “a lot of money,” but his car ran out of gas, his former girlfriend said Thursday.

Ann Barry, testifying for the prosecution on the third day of Pelton’s espionage trial, said that Pelton was “extremely upset” and told her: “Ann, that was our money. Now we’re not going to have any.”

Barry, who lives in Washington, D.C., denied knowing details of Pelton’s alleged sales of U.S. communications secrets to the Soviet Union for $35,000. She said that the former employee of the National Security Agency told her he was “working undercover” for the U.S. government.

‘A Lot of Money’

She knew that the telephone call he wanted to receive “was involving money,” she said, “and that it was going to be a lot of money. That’s all I knew of it.”

Barry’s testimony was part of the prosecution’s effort to support its contention that Soviet agents regularly telephoned Pelton at the Pizza Castle in Falls Church, Va., and that on the last Saturday in September he was on his way there when he ran out of gas.

Prosecutors Thursday even called on the owner of the pizza parlor to identify pictures of his establishment and its telephone.

Prosecutors have said that Pelton, 44, disclosed his “gold mine” of secrets in interviews at the Soviet Embassy in Vienna, and Barry testified that she knew of at least one visit by Pelton to the Austrian capital.

Emotional Testimony

The testimony by Barry, a dark-haired woman in a silky white dress, was an emotional 20 minutes.

Pelton, who at one time paid Barry’s rent and occasionally lived with her, barely glanced her way.

However, Pelton’s estranged wife Judith and two of their children, who have sat through the trial, never took their eyes off Barry and occasionally whispered among themselves.

Pelton has said that Barry influenced him to drink and use drugs, but Barry testified that he was drinking heavily when they met two years ago.

Undercutting Pelton’s potential defense that he was duped by FBI agents while intoxicated, Barry--who admitted to heavy drinking--said that she rarely saw Pelton too drunk to drive. However, she said the evening they ran out of gas was an exception and that she was driving.

FBI Agent Cross-Examined

Earlier, Pelton’s attorney, Fred Warren Bennett, completed his aggressive cross-examination of prosecution witness David E. Faulkner, one of the two FBI agents who arrested Pelton in November.

Bennett focused on the five hours during which Pelton was questioned in an Annapolis, Md., hotel, contending that Pelton’s constitutional rights were violated because he was not told he could remain silent until shortly before he was arrested.

Faulkner said that such notification was not necessary because Pelton was not under arrest and that he was always free to leave.

At the end of the day, U.S. District Judge Herbert F. Murray consulted both sides and then announced that testimony likely will be finished by Tuesday and that the jury, which is sequestered, will start deliberations the next day.

News Media Cautioned

In a related development, a White House spokesman declared presidential support for a joint statement released Wednesday by the CIA and NSA. The statement cautioned the news media not to go beyond information released by the government or provided by testimony in the Pelton trial.

Edward Djerejian, the spokesman, said that the statement had been cleared by President Reagan’s national security adviser, John M. Poindexter, and added: “We are in full agreement with the thrust of that statement.”

He said the statement was “not intended as a threat” and that he was not suggesting reporters would be prosecuted under a 1950 law, not previously applied to the press, against “disclosing any classified information concerning communications intelligence.” CIA Director William J. Casey has raised the possibility of such prosecution in connection with recent news stories.