Lawmakers Tour Embassy, Call It ‘Fully Compromised’ : Surprise Inspection in Moscow

Two members of Congress made a surprise nighttime inspection of the U.S. Embassy and said today that Soviet KBG agents have “fully compromised” it and that undoing the damage will cost tens of millions of dollars.

Rep. Daniel A. Mica (D-Fla.) and Rep. Olympia J. Snowe (R-Me.) said they made the surprise inspection beginning about midnight at the embassy, which is the focus of a sex-and-spy scandal allegedly involving former U.S. Marine guards.

After their tour and talks with embassy officials, Mica told reporters: “We are still as concerned as we were when we left Washington: in fact, more concerned.”

“We agreed that this embassy should be considered at this time fully compromised,” Mica said. “It will cost tens of millions of dollars to address our concerns.”

Snowe told reporters gathered in a freezing rain at the embassy’s front entrance: “There is a lack of security here in many respects.”

Mica said that embassy staff members are acting quickly to restore security at the nine-story building on Moscow’s Garden Ring Road and that a “secure area” has been created “within the last 48 hours.”

Trailer for Shultz

He added, however, that Secretary of State George P. Shultz may still have to bring a special trailer for communicating with Washington when he visits Moscow on April 13-16 for talks with Soviet officials.

The Florida congressman heads the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s operations subcommittee, which supervises construction and running of U.S. diplomatic missions abroad. Snowe is the subcommittee’s ranking Republican.

Their visit to Moscow was prompted by the arrests of three Marines who were guards at the embassy, two of whom have been charged with espionage.

According to Marine Corps charges, those accused of spying became sexually involved with Soviet women and allowed agents of the KGB secret service into the embassy’s communications center and other sensitive areas.

The third Marine is under investigation for allegedly violating the Corps regulation requiring that contacts with Soviet women be reported.

Defense Department sources have said they assume that the security breach allowed the Soviets to decode message traffic over a period that included the October summit in Iceland between President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

Bugs in New Building

Mica said he and Snowe arrived at the embassy about midnight, “before they (the embassy staff) were expecting us,” and were there until about 2 a.m.

After the inspection, he said, they spent most of the day talking to people from virtually every department of the mission.

He said his estimate of the cost of restoring security was based only on what he saw at the building now in use, which was built in 1953. Mica said he and Snowe will inspect the new embassy building, now under construction, on Tuesday.

Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) has said the unfinished brick-and-glass structure, which has already cost $191 million, is full of KGB bugging devices and should be pulled down. (Story on Page 8.) Its site is next to the old building.

Under a 1972 agreement, the United States has allowed the new embassy to be built by Soviet workers, with many prefabricated sections assembled elsewhere.

In Washington today, Rep. William S. Broomfield (R-Mich.) introduced legislation that, if enacted, would require the U.S. government to renounce the agreement under which the United States and the Soviets swapped sites for new embassies.