Head of Office of Foreign Missions : He Plays Tit-for-Tat With Soviets

James Nolan, who spent 25 years tailing Soviet bloc spies in the United States, is having more fun these days, cooking up ways to do unto the Russians what they do to Americans in Moscow.

Human decency might prevent U.S. officials from duplicating all forms of harassment against Americans in Moscow, cited by a recent congressional report: entering diplomats’ apartments when they are absent, scattering cigarette butts, and leaving windows open, causing pipes to freeze and burst in winter.

Until recently, the U.S. government had little leverage to respond in kind to such penny-ante intimidation.

Finding Pressure Points

But in 1983 Congress passed what Nolan calls “a superb piece of legislation” creating the Office of Foreign Missions and giving it extraordinary legal power “to find pressure points in the system.”

Amid the clamor over reports that the Soviets had so bugged the new U.S. Embassy in Moscow that it might be torn down, Nolan quietly but firmly ordered U.S. companies to stop supplying construction materials to the new Soviet embassy in Washington, a step that the American government could not have taken before that law was enacted.

“It seemed to me that as long as we are in that situation in Moscow, we didn’t need to be selling them any material,” Nolan said in an interview, chuckling.

And although he cannot rewrite the 1972 agreement that allowed the Soviets to make elements of the new U.S. Embassy away from American supervision, he can help prevent a recurrence in the construction of missions in other communist cities.

Former FBI Official

Finding the right lever is not always easy, “but sometimes it is fun,” said Nolan, who laughs a great deal for someone from such a serious line of work; until he was appointed first head of the Office of Foreign Missions, he was head of FBI counterintelligence, capping a 25-year career in that field.

“You can’t produce a no-goods level, as in Cuba, or create long lines for whatever goods you are able to buy in Moscow on a given day,” he said, nor can the United States duplicate the mud puddles and 19 Soviet guard booths surrounding the U.S. Embassy in Moscow.

But he can help.

In Moscow, all foreigners live in walled guarded compounds away from the Russian populace, and for a month every summer, the Soviet government turns the hot water off in those buildings, ostensibly to clean the boilers. It is regarded as a form of harassment by the foreigners.

Had No Recourse

Before the Office of Foreign Missions was created, U.S. diplomats had no recourse, but now American utility companies send electric, gas and telephone bills for foreign embassies and residences to Nolan.

“If we get good service in Moscow, I forward the bills,” said Nolan.

Telephone service improved for Americans in Warsaw and Prague after Nolan pulled the plug on Polish and Czechoslovakian diplomats in Washington.

For years, the government of Bulgaria, another Soviet Bloc country, ignored U.S. pleas to give American diplomats better housing.

New Apartments

“I asked our embassy in Sofia for photographs of the apartments in question, showed them to the Bulgarians, and told them we would have to find comparable housing for their diplomats in Washington unless we got new apartments within 30 days,” said Nolan. “We did.”

Nolan declined to detail the counterintelligence aspects of his work, but said, “We have liaison officers from the FBI and military intelligence who are interested in travel and some of the other issues” involving diplomats from the Soviet bloc and other potentially hostile nations.

The Kremlin requires Americans in Moscow to request permission 48 hours in advance if they wish to travel farther than 21 miles from the Soviet capital, and can also deny them room in state-owned planes, trains and hotels.

Travel Controls Help

Those conditions are hard to re-create in the free-market conditions of the United States, Nolan said. But Soviet diplomats must request permission to travel, and must book their transportation and hotel rooms through Nolan’s office. For every trip the Soviets deny the Americans, Nolan denies the Russians, and he tacks on extra fees to match Soviet surcharges.

The travel controls make counterintelligence work a lot easier, he said.

Among nations, “Eastern European governments are the most difficult because the state owns or controls everything,” he said. “But we have problems in lots of places,” including America.

Because foreign diplomats in the United States have immunity from criminal prosecution, local governments had trouble enforcing laws against drunk driving or forcing diplomats to carry mandatory liability insurance. The Office of Foreign Missions, rather than local governments, now issues drivers’ licenses and tags, and Nolan does not hesitate to revoke them for moving offenses or failure to carry insurance.

Problems Get Solved

The new procedure has another advantage for Nolan’s former colleagues in counterintelligence: the distinctive red, white and blue license plates have letter codes for each country, making it easier for the FBI to keep track of cars owned by Soviet bloc embassies.

Nolan’s office tabulates taxes that foreign governments charge Americans, and vice versa, and found that France was charging $1 million taxes on materials for a new U.S. Embassy in Paris. The problem was solved amicably.

The government of Algeria expropriated U.S. property after the revolution there in the 1960s, and refused to make reparations.