Embassy Guards’ Use of Prostitutes OKd, Lawyer Says

Marines assigned to guard the U.S. Embassy in Moscow were encouraged to have promiscuous liaisons and were told in their official orientation “where the young ladies can be found, and that it’s all right to go use prostitutes,” the lawyer for Marine Sgt. Clayton Lonetree said Sunday.

The allegation, leveled as the investigation of U.S. security failures in Moscow widened, was immediately denied by just-retired U.S. Ambassador Arthur A. Hartman, but a spokesman for the Marine Corps said it would, nevertheless, be investigated along with every other aspect of the scandal.

Michael Stuhff, the attorney for Lonetree, made his charge during an interview on the CBS program, “Face the Nation.”

“It wasn’t uncommon at all for the Marines to go out to some of the hotels, where the local women were known to hang out,” he said. “And as a result of that, they were encouraged to relieve their tensions, we might say, in rather promiscuous types of liaisons. . . .”

When asked what he meant by “encouraged,” he added: “The commanding NCO (noncommissioned officer) at Moscow, when these young men were snapped in . . . given their initial orientation to the duty station, were told where the young ladies can be found, and that it’s all right to use prostitutes.”

Lonetree, 25, is in a Marine Corps brig accused, along with Sgt. Arnold Bracy, of allowing Soviet operatives the run of the embassy they were guarding, including access to spaces where top-secret communications are handled.

His participation in the perhaps devastating penetration of U.S. security followed a dalliance with a young Soviet woman named Violetta Seina, who worked as a translator at the embassy.

Lawyer Denies Charges

Although investigators are still assessing the damage and assuming the worst, Stuhff said Sunday that the charges that Lonetree led KGB agents around the embassy opening doors for them have “absolutely no basis whatsoever.”

He acknowledged that the sergeant did have a sexual liaison with Seina, but he said Lonetree still believes that his lover was herself used by the KGB, “that she certainly didn’t set out to do this.”

“I certainly admire his faith in that young lady,” the lawyer said, adding: “I’m not quite sure that I share it.”

Hartman, who just retired after five years as the American ambassador in Moscow, categorically denied Stuhff’s assertion that Marines were encouraged in sexual relationships with women in Moscow.

“That is not true that these people were encouraged to have this kind of affair,” he said. “It is not true that they were briefed in this way.”

Warned of Dangers

To the contrary, he said that Marine guards were warned of such dangers when they arrived in the Soviet Union, and that thereafter they attended weekly sessions in which they were told “who they could see, and who they couldn’t see, and under what circumstances.”

Investigation of U.S. security problems in Moscow will extend beyond the Marines this week when Rep. Daniel A. Mica (D-Fla.), chairman of a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee that oversees embassy security, inspects the controversial new $190-million embassy building in Moscow.

Mica said Sunday that 10 more U.S. missions are under investigation by State Department and military officials, the Washington Post reported. Mica did not identify the embassies.

The Moscow structure has been found to be so seeded with listening devices during the course of construction that some experts doubt that it can ever be made secure from Soviet eavesdropping.

Called Unusable

Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), the former vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, has maintained for nearly two years that the building will be unusable.

In the CBS interview Sunday, Leahy renewed his reservations. In its management of the construction project, the United States has, in effect, used the KGB as the general contractor, Leahy said. “When you come right down to the bottom line,” he said, “that’s what it is.”

Mounting concern over the thorough bugging of the structure has led to the creation of a special commission of intelligence experts to determine if the building can be used, and if so, what would be required to make it secure. Former Defense Secretary James R. Schlesinger, who is head of that investigation, is expected to visit the Moscow construction site next month.

President Reagan, arriving in Ottowa for a meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, told reporters Sunday that “I know steps are being taken to secure the embassy. There is a technology to determine whether the facility has been bugged.” But if the new embassy cannot be made secure, “we obviously wouldn’t move in,” he said.

Soviets’ New Embassy

Meanwhile, the Soviet Union is constructing its own new embassy on a hill in northwest Washington to replace its present quarters just a few blocks north of the White House.

Besides the problem of the new American Embassy’s being bugged from the foundation up, Leahy said Sunday that the United States had failed to get reciprocity for its building site.

“Our embassy over there,” he said, “is in a swamp surrounded by buildings controlled by the KGB. Their embassy is sitting up on Mt. Alto here in Washington, with antennas that can go into the Pentagon, the White House, the Treasury, the CIA, everything else.”

Until the problems are resolved concerning the new U.S. Embassy in Moscow, Leahy said, the Soviet Union should not be permitted to move into its new facility here. Moreover, he endorsed a proposal made two years ago by Sen. Lawton Chiles (D-Fla.) that the United States demand damage payment from the Soviets for the bugging of the new Moscow embassy.

Intelligence Mission

Leahy blamed both the Marine sex and spying scandal and the embarrassing situation with the new embassy on a failure of the State Department to fully recognize that the United States has an intelligence mission as well as a diplomatic mission in Moscow.

“There are people within the State Department who just do not understand that we have a dual mission in the Soviet Union,” he said. “One is a diplomatic mission, but it releases no secrets (for me) to say that we also have an intelligence mission, in the same way the Soviet Union does here in Washington.”

On the latter score, he said: “We certainly, apparently, don’t do it anywhere near as well as they do.”