Capitalist Weapon, the Ad Campaign, Aims at Russian Spies

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is placing advertisements in a Russian-language newspaper in hopes of catching spies and attracting the attention of potential defectors, according to a published report.

The New York Times reported in today’s editions that the FBI has begun running daily display advertisements in Novoye Russkoye Slovo, or New Russian Word, asking readers to share information about Soviet spies operating here and abroad.

“Replies will be kept in the strictest confidence,” the ad states.

Since the ads started last Friday, the FBI has received six calls through Sunday afternoon, the newspaper said. The FBI would not say what the calls were about or characterize them in any manner, the New York Times said.

The ad is designed to capitalize on the influx of about 150,000 Soviet emigres since 1975, and the expected arrival of 80,000 over the next year or so, James Fox, director of the New York FBI office, told the newspaper. About 50,000 settled in the New York area.

The American intelligence community has presumed that the KGB placed some agents along with the emigres, and the newspaper ads are aimed at catching those spies, the newspaper reported. Fox said the bureau expects the KGB to have double-agents respond to the ads and was prepared for that.

The ads say many emigres may be “in a position to assist the FBI in its counterintelligence mission.”

FBI officials also want to collect information about Soviet criminal gangs that operate in the emigre community, especially in the Brighton Beach section of Brooklyn, the paper said.

The ads, which are costing the FBI $300 a day, are scheduled to run daily for two weeks and then appear intermittently, the FBI told the paper.

The Soviet-language newspaper, published in New York, has a circulation of more than 50,000 nationwide, largely in emigre communities.