Lonetree Says CIA Offered to Make Him Double Agent
A Marine charged with spying at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow was deceived by CIA agents who told him he could become a counterintelligence agent if he cooperated, a defense lawyer says.
Attorney Michael Stuhff of Las Vegas, Nev., said agents discussed a plan to send Sgt. Clayton J. Lonetree, former embassy guard, into the Soviet Union to bring out a former CIA agent who defected, according to Wednesday editions of the St. Paul Pioneer Press Dispatch. Lonetree, 25, is from St. Paul.
A plan to make Lonetree believe he could be a double agent was among ways CIA agents deceived and coerced the Marine into cooperating, Stuhff said in a copyrighted interview with the newspaper.
The newspaper said Lonetree’s attorneys have filed a motion at the Quantico, Va., Marine base asking that statements Lonetree made to the CIA and Naval Investigative Service agents be excluded from his court-martial, the newspaper reported. The court-martial is scheduled to begin next week.
A spokeswoman at CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., refused to comment on any of the allegations, the newspaper said.
The Pentagon has dropped the most serious allegation against Lonetree, that he escorted KGB agents through secure sections of the building after hours, but the Marine sergeant still faces espionage charges.
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