Convicted Spy’s Family Copes Through Faith

Mandy Miller is 7 and knows her way around the federal prison on Terminal Island. The freckle-faced youngster goes there with a mission: to brighten the days of a convicted spy, her father.

To Mandy and her seven brothers and sisters, Richard Miller is hardly the man prosecutors portrayed as a scheming, bumbling FBI agent who betrayed his country in an adulterous affair with a blonde Soviet operative.

Miller was convicted on espionage charges in June and has been sentenced to two concurrent life terms plus 50 years in prison by a federal judge who said a man should never be allowed to walk free in the land he has betrayed.

But Miller’s children believe that their father is innocent, and they rush into his outstretched arms on visiting days at the maximum security prison.

“He hugs us and kisses us and is really glad to see us,” Mandy said. “We sit on his knee. He brings us fruit and we sneak candy in to him. Tootsie Pops are his favorites.

“It’s the only thing we can bring to make Daddy happy.”

Nestling in the protective arc of her mother’s arm during an interview at the family’s avocado ranch in northern San Diego County, Mandy talked in a tiny voice about Daddy.

“He used to wrestle with us,” she said. “What I liked best is he would play horsey with us and he crawled around on his knees with us on his back.”

For Miller’s former wife, Paula, the past 22 months have been an arduous struggle to keep her family together and hang onto her home and her belief in the justice system. She won only the first two battles.

A devout Mormon, Paula Miller has sought to strengthen her family’s faith by leading the children in daily prayer. Her oldest child, Paul, 20, is on a Mormon mission in Guatemala. The seven others, ranging in age from 3 to 19, live at home.

Without her husband’s $50,000-a-year salary, Paula was on welfare, facing foreclosure on her home and staggering legal bills. The kids did what they could with part-time jobs until Paula nailed down a full-time position teaching English. Their finances have now stabilized.

Stands By Him

Although she dissolved their 20-year marriage during Miller’s first trial last fall, Paula stands by him and thinks that the justice system did him wrong.

“I’ve told my children he’s not a spy,” she said, twirling a strand of Mandy’s hair in her fingers. “They can go to their grave knowing he’s not a spy. If I thought he were a traitor, I’d be telling my children a different story. I would not be able to support someone who sold out his country.”

Paula Miller said her former husband shares her optimism that his conviction will be overturned on appeal. In the meantime, he draws little pictures for his children and makes sure that he phones from prison on their birthdays.

As quickly as she springs to his defense, Paula concedes that Miller had a “weakness” for women that led to numerous infidelities--but that does not mean he betrayed his country, she said.

‘Weakness of All Men’

“Richard was immoral,” she said, referring to his sexual escapades. “It happens to be the weakness of all men. But it doesn’t follow that he’s a spy.

“There probably are spies who are sexually compromised. That doesn’t mean that all men who are sexually compromised are spies.”

Four months before Miller began his affair with Svetlana Ogorodnikova in May, 1984, he was excommunicated from the Mormon Church for adultery. Even while Ogorodnikova was wiling a secret FBI intelligence manual out of Miller, there were other women.

Paula still winces at the memory. Although her faith helped her through the tough times, it also made the breakup of her marriage more painful.

“We were married for all eternity,” Paula said, referring to the Mormon belief in the afterlife. “So to realize that you can’t go on in this life, let alone in the next one, is a lot to deal with.”

Saw Family Through

But she is a survivor whose dedication, quick wit and sheer determination saw her family through.

“I’ve never believed life is supposed to be easy,” she said. “You’re supposed to come to this life to be tested and to learn and get through it. I don’t spend a lot of time feeling sorry for myself.”

Paula Miller insisted that life stay as normal as possible. She sent the kids to school. The boys went to Cub Scouts. They braved the outside world.

Nearly two years later, a summer afternoon at the Miller home looks like any American family scene. Paula’s mother is applying wallpaper to the bathroom wall. Angelena, 14, makes grilled cheese sandwiches while the younger children clamor for their mother’s permission to swim and go horseback riding.

Faith Buoyed Spirits

Angelena said, “The worst time was right after he was arrested”--by his fellow FBI agents on Oct. 2, 1984. “I got a few notes and writing on my locker at school. The notes said if I didn’t get out of school I’d be in trouble.”

But her friends rallied around her. The strong, athletic girls from physical education class offered to beat up any troublemakers.

Her faith buoyed her spirits. Above the strewn clothes of her bedroom hangs a plaque that reads, “Lord, help me to remember that nothing is going to happen to me today that You and I together can’t handle.”