Ex-Airman Seized as Soviet Spy in Calif.’s Silicon Valley : Aerospace Man Jailed in Palo Alto

A 33-year-old former Air Force man who worked in the Silicon Valley was arrested today by FBI agents and charged with attempting to deliver defense information to representatives of the Soviet Union, the government said.

In a brief statement, U.S. Atty. Joseph Russoniello said Alan John Davies of San Jose was arrested this morning in Palo Alto and would appear later today before a federal magistrate for a hearing.

Russoniello said Davies was charged with providing detailed information about a classified Air Force reconnaissance program to a person he believed was an employee of the Soviet Consulate in San Francisco.

Davies, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Britain, works for Ford Aerospace Communications Corp. in San Jose, Justice Department officials said, and did not have a top secret security clearance.

He served in the U.S. Air Force for 10 years, an official said, and was given an administrative discharge in 1984.

An affidavit filed along with the criminal complaint against Davies alleges that the incident took place in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park on Sept. 22.

Russoniello said no further arrests are expected in the case.

The investigation was conducted by the FBI with the assistance of the Air Force’s Office of Special Investigation.

Russoniello said that, if convicted, Davies could be sentenced to life in prison.

Russoniello’s statement did not disclose the circumstances that led to Davies’ arrest. Davies’ residence and the place of his arrest are in the in Silicon Valley south of San Francisco, one of the centers of the nation’s high-tech industry.

The Justice Department officials, who also announced the arrest in Washington, stressed that the latest development in an ongoing U.S.-Soviet espionage battle would not affect relations between the superpowers.

But Davies’ arrest follows an unprecedented series of tit-for-tat expulsions of U.S. and Soviet diplomats, which U.S. officials said was triggered in part by FBI concerns that Soviet espionage under diplomatic cover in this country was escalating.

One U.S. official told reporters in Washington that the Sept. 17 expulsion of 25 top Soviet spies and an additional 55 embassy and consular spies last week “decapitated” the Soviets’ espionage network in the United States.

The FBI declined immediate comment on the arrest. A spokeswoman for the Defense Department also declined immediate comment.

The last espionage arrest was made Aug. 23 in New York, when FBI agents picked up Gennady F. Zakharov on three counts of spying for the Soviet Union. Zakharov, who was released as part of the deal to free American reporter Nicholas Daniloff, pleaded no contest to the charges and was expelled from the United States on Sept. 30.

The spring and summer of last year saw an almost continuous string of spy disclosures, including the family spy ring of ex-Navy man John Walker Jr., who sold submarine secrets of incalculable value to Moscow. Walker and his son, Michael, are to be sentenced next month.