Lonetree Given 30 Years; Could Be Paroled in 10

Sgt. Clayton J. Lonetree, the first Marine ever convicted of espionage, was sentenced to 30 years in prison Monday by a military jury for passing secrets to the Soviet Union while serving as a security guard at U.S. embassies in Moscow and Vienna.

Lonetree, 25, also was fined $5,000, demoted to private, ordered to forfeit all future pay and allowances and dishonorably discharged. If his conviction is upheld on appeal--and his lawyers promised to appeal--he will be eligible for parole in 10 years.

Prosecutors had urged life imprisonment for Lonetree--and the former embassy guard’s lawyers seemed surprised he did not receive it. While the jury was deliberating on the penalty, the lawyers said that they expected the maximum punishment.

Death Penalty Waived

Military law allows the death penalty for espionage, but the government earlier this summer waived its right to seek capital punishment when it dropped the most sensational charges against Lonetree--that he allowed KGB agents to roam through the most secret part of America’s most sensitive diplomatic installation.

The jury of eight Marine officers had convicted Lonetree Friday on 13 counts of espionage, conspiracy and larceny. Before the jurors began three hours of deliberation Monday on the punishment phase, Lonetree told them in a halting voice that the Marine Corps is “something I really cherish.”

Lonetree, who did not testify during his monthlong court-martial, said under questioning by his lawyers that he was “very patriotic . . . a devoted anti-communist.” He said it was “difficult to explain” how and why he became ensnarled in a KGB trap baited by an attractive young Soviet woman who was a translator at the Moscow embassy.

“I’m not going to blame anyone,” he said in a voice so low that jurors seemed to be straining to hear his words. “It is really somewhat difficult to say. . . . You don’t just walk right in and say I’ll turn on my country.”

Lonetree was convicted of giving the Soviets the identities of CIA agents and the floor plans to the Moscow and Vienna embassies in return for sexual favors from the Soviet woman and $3,500 from a KGB operative, a man she introduced to Lonetree as her “Uncle Sasha.” Lonetree served in the Moscow embassy in 1984 and 1985 before being transferred to Vienna last year.

‘Betrayed the Uniform’

In urging a sentence of life imprisonment, the chief military prosecutor, Marine Maj. David L. Beck, said that “a message needs to be sent out, a punishment needs to be made, that crimes like this will not be tolerated. . . . This accused has betrayed the uniform he wears.”

Another prosecutor, Maj. Frank R. Short, called Lonetree “a traitor” who should be dealt with harshly.

“This accused traded, like so many pawns, the people he betrayed by putting them on a KGB target list, for reasons of his own lust and his own selfishness.”

Short also referred to the fact that Lonetree was the first Marine to be court-martialed for espionage since the corps was formed in 1775. “Part of the job for the court is to set an example for the next 212 years, so this won’t happen again,” he said.

Defense lawyers contended that Lonetree turned over nothing of value to the Soviets and dealt with the KGB because he fantasized about being a double agent and exposing the Soviet secret police.

A Marine psychologist called by the defense, Lt. Col. Forest A. Sherman, testified that Lonetree is in “many ways a bright young man but lacks common sense . . . he has his head in the clouds . . . he is likely to do foolish things.”

One of the defense lawyers, Michael V. Stuhff, argued that a life sentence would serve no purpose. “What do you gain by being unduly harsh on Sgt. Lonetree?” he asked.

Another defense lawyer, Marine Maj. David Henderson, said that Lonetree should be given credit for turning himself in to intelligence officials last December. “He could have walked, gentlemen, he could have walked scot-free, but he didn’t do that,” he told the jurors.

Under questioning by Henderson, Lonetree paused for several minutes and appeared to be weeping when asked to describe his childhood. He said he was born in Chicago, lived with his Navajo mother and then with his father, a Winnebago Indian, in St. Paul, Minn. For five years he and his younger brother were in an orphanage in Farmington, N.M., then lived again with their father in Minnesota.

“Every time I done anything he criticized me,” he said of his father. “The only time he spoke to me, he was drunk.”

The sentence will be reviewed by the commanding general of the Quantico Marine base, Lt. Gen. Frank E. Petersen Jr., and later by the Navy-Marine Corps Court of Military Review in Washington.

The military judge said that Lonetree would receive credit for the 241 days he has been in confinement, but a Marine lawyer not involved in the case said that credit would apply only to the total sentence and not to his eligibility for parole. Parole is considered after one-third of the sentence is served and, in case of a life sentence, after 10 years.