Lonetree Pleads Not Guilty to Spying for Soviets

Marine Sgt. Clayton J. Lonetree, a former guard at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, pleaded not guilty Friday to charges that he funneled U.S. secrets to the Soviets.

Lonetree’s pleas were entered by defense attorney Michael Stuhff on the 13th day of Lonetree’s court-martial, the first of a Marine charged with espionage.

According to rules of the military justice system, the formal pleas to 13 counts that Lonetree faces were not entered until a series of pretrial motions were dealt with, Stuhff said.

Prosecutors attempted Friday to introduce evidence they said would show that the former embassy guard is anti-American.

The chief military prosecutor, Marine Maj. David L. Beck, said items seized from Lonetree include materials printed in Russian, books on Leninism and a Soviet flag. Beck also said he wants to introduce high school notebooks in which Lonetree doodled swastikas.

Stuhff disputed Beck’s contention that Lonetree’s Soviet flag and high school notebooks indicated any anti-American views. Overseas military personnel often acquire memorabilia from their foreign posts, and adolescents commonly make antisocial doodlings in school, he said.

“I think it’s kind of a way of smoking the case up where there’s not a lot of other evidence,” Stuhff said outside the courtroom at the Quantico Marine Corps Base.

The military judge, Navy Capt. Philip F. Roberts, said he would rule on the admission of the evidence as it comes up in the actual trial, which will begin after the military jurors are chosen.

Earlier, Beck said the government had gone along with Roberts’ suggestions that Lonetree be taken out of solitary confinement where he has been held since Dec. 31.

Beck said Lonetree will be allowed to take meals with other brig inmates, play cards and basketball with them and attend religious services in the brig chapel.

Lonetree, 25, from St. Paul, Minn., is accused of letting a love affair with a Soviet woman seduce him into spying. He faces life in prison if convicted.