Many Elements Disrupt Work at Embassy in Moscow

The U.S. Embassy here, reeling from the Marine guard spy scandal, is having a hard time doing its job these days.

Still severely handicapped by security problems and a shortage of service personnel, the embassy is wrestling with the difficulties in reporting on the Kremlin at a particularly sensitive time:

-- Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev is struggling to make radical changes in the lackluster economy.

-- Washington and Moscow are edging closer to an agreement on removing short- and medium-range missiles from Europe and a possible summit between President Reagan and Gorbachev this fall.

-- The embassy workload is heavier because the Soviet government has been granting hundreds more exit visas to Jewish refuseniks who want to emigrate to the United States.

--By coincidence, many top-level U.S. diplomats as well as junior Foreign Service officers are scheduled to leave Moscow this summer for reassignment. Some of their replacements, however, are members of the “Soviet Mafia” with previous Moscow experience, so there will be some continuity.

Security Breached

Security is the key issue. The embassy’s security apparently was breached when its Marine guards allegedly became involved with Soviet women working for the Soviet security agency, the KGB, and may have allowed its agents access to the building’s most sensitive communications areas.

Prospects for improvement at a new embassy chancery, or office, building under construction are not good: Secretary of State George P. Shultz has said that the new building is “honeycombed” with Soviet-planted listening devices.

The result, said one senior U.S. diplomat recently, is that “we are still writing with quill and pen everything that is sensitive . . . and it goes out by pony express. It’s a tremendous drain.”

The diplomat said that security considerations now prevent the use of word processors, whose electronic workings can be intercepted and decoded, or even typewriters for writing sensitive cables to Washington.

When the handwritten messages are finished, he said, they are carried out of the country by couriers to a U.S. Embassy that has secure communications.

Trailer for Shultz Visit

A special trailer was imported for use during Shultz’s visit to Moscow last April but apparently it proved to be far from an ideal solution.

“We don’t want that ‘Winnebago’ (trailer) again,” an embassy official said. “There’s got to be a better way.”

Asked if the embassy had no way of sending secret messages from Moscow, he replied:

“We have secure communications--in a kind of Scotch-tape, lash-it-together, Rube Goldberg way,” indicating that this method, which he did not elaborate on, was not suitable for a heavy flow of traffic.

Another difficulty, the diplomat said, is that no one responsible for security wants to be regarded as letting down their guard so the most cautious and conservative view on security prevails.

Personnel Shortage

The embassy’s other major difficulty is a shortage of service personnel, diplomats said. It has been running short-handed since the Soviet government withdrew more than 200 cooks, typists, drivers, mechanics, repairmen and cleaners last October. That move was in retaliation for the U.S. expulsion of diplomats from Soviet missions at the United Nations.

For months, diplomats did double duty as janitors and chauffeurs, heaved mailbags and checked arriving shipments through customs. The State Department decided to hire Americans to perform these tasks and allow Foreign Service officers to concentrate on political reporting and representation work.

So far, however, only 30 of these contract workers have started work at the embassy; another 60 vacancies for support staff remain. The diplomats’ extra-duty roster is no longer needed but they still have to clean their own offices as a matter of routine.

“We’re still operating and we’re not crippled, but we’re hurting,” a senior diplomat said.

Thorough Background Checks

The delay in filling the vacancies is because “it’s easier to get former students of Russian than it is to hire a qualified plumber or mechanic,” the diplomat said. In addition, each person hired for Moscow duty must undergo a thorough background check by federal investigators which is both time-consuming and expensive.

“That’s a bottleneck,” the diplomat said.

In order to cut through delays on the Washington side, the State Department has named a special trouble-shooter to help the struggling embassy here and the consulate in Leningrad. He is Gary Matthews, who carries the rank of ambassador and has Shultz’s full backing.

“The United States has never done this before--operated an embassy without hiring local residents,” the senior diplomat said. “It’s just incredible how much physical work is involved in running an embassy like this.”