3rd Moscow Marine Arrested : Failed to Report Contacting Soviet Women, U.S. Says

The Marine Corps has arrested a third security guard from the U.S. Embassy in Moscow on suspicion that he failed to report contacts with Soviet women while working in the Soviet Union, the Pentagon said today.

Robert Sims, the Pentagon’s chief spokesman, identified the man as Staff Sgt. Robert Stanley Stufflebeam, 24, of Bloomington, Ill. He said Stufflebeam was arrested Sunday at the Marine base at Camp Pendleton, Calif.

Sims said Stufflebeam has not been accused of espionage, as have two other former Moscow embassy guards. He said Stufflebeam, the former No. 2 man in the Marine detachment in Moscow, had been arrested based on information gathered in the course of an ongoing investigation of Sgt. Clayton J. Lonetree and Cpl. Arnold Bracy.

The spokesman said Stufflebeam had worked at the embassy during the same time period as Lonetree and Bracy.

2 Military Regulations

Sims said Stufflebeam is being held on suspicion of violating two military regulations--failure to report all contacts with foreign nationals and making false official statements “during his exit debriefing indicating that no such contacts had occurred.”

Pentagon sources had earlier disclosed that both Lonetree, who was arrested in December, and Bracy, who was arrested earlier this month, had become sexually involved with Soviet women who worked at the embassy.

Lonetree and Bracy worked together at the embassy for a period of roughly eight months in 1985 and 1986. According to the Marine Corps, Stufflebeam served as a assistant commander of the Marine detachment at the embassy during that same period.

Sims also announced today that the Marine Corps has formally lodged charges against Bracy, filing eight counts against him. Among the eight charges is a single count of espionage, which under military law is punishable by death.

The corps accused Bracy of helping Lonetree allow Soviet agents inside the embassy late at night “on numerous and diverse occasions.”

Lookout Role Charged

The charges assert that Bracy acted as Lonetree’s lookout during the late-night forays, silencing alarms that were set off by the Soviet agents and then lying with Lonetree to superiors about what set off the alarms.

The “charge sheet” filed against Bracy said he allegedly had contact with the same Soviet agent with whom Lonetree dealt--”Aleksiy G. Yefimov, AKA Uncle Sasha.”

Lonetree, 25, spent most of the day Monday in Bethesda Naval Hospital outside Washington undergoing a “routine psychological exam,” said Maj. Tony Rothfork, a Marine spokesman.

He was later returned to the Marine base at Quantico, Va., where he has been held since shortly after his arrest last December.

On Monday, the Marine Corps announced that it had agreed to an unprecedented replacement of all 28 security guards now serving at the Moscow embassy with a new group of Marines. (Story on Page 6.)