Methods of Interrogators Under Fire in Sex-Spy Case

One day after the Marine Corps dropped all espionage charges against Cpl. Arnold Bracy in the sex-and-spying scandal at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, there were new signs Saturday of problems for the prosecutors of the remaining espionage case against Sgt. Clayton J. Lonetree.

The decision to release Bracy, a former security guard at the embassy, left only Lonetree facing a court-martial on espionage charges. It also left naval investigators of the case under attack for their methods.

The Times has learned that at least two other former Moscow embassy guards, Cpl. Robert J. Williams and Staff Sgt. Vincent Downes, have signed sworn statements complaining that agents for the Naval Investigative Service used lie-detector tests and threats to pressure them into falsely accusing their fellow Marines.

“A lot of Marines are being punished on the basis of statements contrived by NIS,” Williams said in a statement he signed May 15.

Williams urged in his statement, now being circulated on Capitol Hill, that the tactics of the NIS be investigated. “Their job is to find the truth,” he said. “Their job is not to fabricate a story or to change people’s words so as to make themselves and others look guilty.”

In a statement Friday, the Pentagon insisted that the massive NIS investigation was conducted in an “absolutely . . . correct and professional manner.”

But one military lawyer called it “a worldwide wild goose chase,” another termed it “heavy-handed, at best” and Bracy’s civilian lawyer charged that the NIS went “into a frenzy.”

Williams, in his statement, says that he was interrogated during three days in April by NIS agents who pressed him for information about $35,000 they contended Bracy had been paid by the Soviet KGB.

“This kept up for hours and hours about Bracy,” Williams said, and the agents “continued to harass me, trying to get me to say I had knowledge of the fact that Bracy received $35,000. We went over and over this fact. They kept saying that if I had this knowledge I would later be charged for withholding evidence, that I would go to jail and that I could be relieved or my career would be ruined. They would not accept the truth. . . . “

Williams said that his interrogation “did not finish until I agreed with their so-called case scenarios. . . . All day long, I kept arguing with them about what could have happened and their changing around what I was saying. They asked me to speculate. When I told them what could have happened they documented it as fact.”

‘Twisting the Truth’

Later, Williams said, he talked with other guards and discovered “the agents did that to all the Marines. The agents had put words in the other Marines’ statements as well, thereby twisting the truth.”

In another sworn statement also being studied by congressional aides, Downes, a Marine staff sergeant and former assistant detachment commander at the Moscow embassy, told of nine lie-detector tests he was given by NIS agents.

“After being mentally and physically drained, the NIS agents informed me that I could not resume my military career until my name was cleared from their list,” Downes said. “They told me my life would never be the same because they would open a file on me called the ‘Person of Particular Interest’ file.

“They told me that someone would always be looking into my life, if not NIS then the FBI. They told me my military career would be at a standstill, if not completely over, because I could never be assigned overseas and my security clearances would be pulled. They told me that I could forget about ever getting any government or federal job.

“They also told me that because I was not coming up with the presumed knowledge I had on Cpl. Bracy that the Soviet-U.S. contacts in Moscow were being killed, and I was partially responsible for their deaths. After numerous days and hours of questioning, I requested to go under hypnosis, or truth serum, to try and uncover this knowledge.”

Tells of Misgivings

Downes said that when he expressed misgivings about signing any statement, “the NIS agent . . . told me I was only swearing to him and not to God so I had nothing to worry about.”

Bracy and Staff Sgt. Robert Stufflebeam, another former Marine security guard at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, also were the subjects of extensive lie-detector tests.

Bracy was arrested for espionage, based on statements he made during his March interrogation but quickly recanted. He spent nearly three months in solitary confinement at a Marine brig before being released Friday, when all charges against him were dropped because of insufficient evidence.

Stufflebeam also was arrested, based on statements he made during his interrogation, and he is now awaiting the military’s decision on whether he will be court-martialed on charges that he had forbidden contacts with Soviet women. He has not been charged with espionage.

Last month, the Marines dropped the most explosive charges against Lonetree--that he allowed Soviet agents to prowl through the most sensitive areas of the embassy--because they were based on Bracy’s recanted confession. Lonetree still faces a July 22 court-martial on espionage and other charges.

Bracy’s interrogation began after two NIS agents installed a polygraph machine in a room at a Best Western motel in the Mohave Desert east of Los Angeles on March 19.

Given 5 Polygraph Tests

Bracy was then brought to the motel from nearby Twenty-nine Palms Marine Base, where the agents questioned him during the next two days for more than 16 hours, giving him five lie-detector tests.

On March 27, the same agents took Stufflebeam to a room at the Royal Scott motel near Camp Pendleton, and during 20 hours of questioning over the next two days also gave him five lie-detector tests.

The two NIS agents were among more than 100 military investigators assigned to the worldwide inquiry.

Lt. Col. Michael Powell, Bracy’s chief military counsel, who called the NIS investigation “a worldwide witch hunt,” said that the agency had engaged in “an abuse of the polygraph as an interrogation tool.”

Charles E. Carter, associate general counsel of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People and a member of Bracy’s defense team, also criticized the NIS for a “sloppy and biased approach” and accused it of going “off into a frenzy.”

“Our relief that all charges have been dropped by the Marine Corps is tempered by the knowledge of the depth of the ordeal Cpl. Bracy has been forced to suffer because of the NIS,” Carter said.

Stufflebeam’s military counsel, Navy Lt. Greg Nousom, also criticized NIS tactics as “heavy-handed, at best.” He added: “They are looking for a scapegoat. They are desperate for some kind of a conviction.”

Sees ‘Gestapo Tactics’

And the Marine guard’s uncle, Virginia businessman Lee Stufflebeam, said: “NIS agents are running amok. . . . They are using Gestapo tactics. It’s just like Joe McCarthy all over again.”

Although the NIS itself did not respond immediately to the criticisms, the agency has its high-level defenders.

Marine Lt. Gen. Frank E. Petersen, who dismissed the charges against Bracy, said in a statement that the NIS had conducted “an intensive and thorough investigation.” And a Navy spokesman said: “They did not do anything improper.”

A knowledgeable U.S. intelligence official who has monitored the Moscow embassy investigation closely said: “I think NIS is getting a bad rap.

“I know people are going to say they did a bad job,” the official added. “If I were the defense, I would have been saying that too. But I continue to think this is a very professional service, and they’ve done a very admirable job in a tough situation.”