Heat Is on Spies Asking to Come in From Cold : Espionage: Nervous Warsaw Pact agents are beginning to sell out their U.S. and Western recruits.

The Warsaw Pact spies coming in from the cold have something new to offer.

Now out of work as many of their countries turn toward democracy, some East European agents, in hopes of making deals for themselves in the West, are beginning to sell out their old “assets”--U.S. and other Western recruits.

“It’s an unnerving time to be an agent--for the other side,” said a senior FBI counterintelligence official. “Someone (from East Europe) might just walk in with their files, wanting to do a deal.”

A number of operatives, particularly from East Germany, have been turning over information on spies they ran in the West, hoping to be allowed to move westward rather than risk living under the newly elected governments in the East.

The bizarre turn of events reflects a larger reality: The visible chaos in the Communist world is mirrored in the secret world of intelligence. Not only are East Bloc spies seeking amnesties for themselves, but many of the newly democratic governments of Eastern Europe are seeking to distance their secret services from Moscow, U.S. officials said.

Some East European intelligence agencies have essentially been told to “stand down” their operations, particularly those in cooperation with the Soviets, said Assistant FBI Director L. Douglas Gow, while “with others, it’s business as usual.”

Count among the latter group the Soviets, whose spy operations are “at least as aggressive as ever” in this country, said Gow, who is in charge of U.S. counterintelligence investigations. Yet in the former Soviet satellite nations, he said, there already have been instances in which intelligence operatives have come forward with information on persons recruited to spy on the United States. He declined to provide details.

Existing cases may also get new life. Another FBI official, familiar with the stymied probe of fired State Department diplomat Felix Bloch, observed that “whoever recruited or handled Bloch may find it in his interest to turn him in now. . . . He may be just ready to turn on him.”

East European services also are now emphasizing the collection of economic and technological data that are important to their individual nations, rather than military secrets that are of primary value to the Soviet Union.

“It may be time to redefine what constitutes a threat to our national security,” said Gow. “We have to consider economic security as well.

“What constitutes proprietary information? What if an auto company develops a radical new engine, or there’s a breakthrough in super-conductivity or something in electronics? Our national security may not be threatened (if the design secrets are stolen), but our economic security may be jeopardized.”

The reduced and redirected efforts of East European intelligence agencies have not affected the Soviet KGB or its military counterpart, the GRU, however. In fact, Moscow is stepping up its spying, trying “to compensate for reduced forces with more intelligence information,” a Pentagon official said.

“Americans are still being approached abroad by the Soviets,” said Gow. “More (Soviet) emigres are here, more (Soviet) students, more joint (U.S.-Soviet business) ventures providing access. Overall, the Soviets have increased their activities in the United States.”

“Gorbachev likes intelligence,” another official said about Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev. “He is said to devour it.”

“They (the Soviets) are also expanding in Europe,” Gow added, “and stepping up activities in the Far East,” often through use of surrogates such as the North Koreans and Vietnamese.

“In Gorbachev’s five years, they have been very successful at collection, although not at the Walker-Whitworth level,” the Pentagon official said, referring to John Walker and the friends and family he recruited to steal classified Navy codes from 1965 to 1985. “But only a handful (of cases) have been made public.”

Although some East European services have moved away from Moscow’s control, the United States still has “concerns about continuing intelligence links between Warsaw Pact governments and the Soviet Union,” Paul G. Wolfowitz, defense undersecretary for policy, told Congress recently.

“Wolfowitz was signaling that we’ve seen changes, but we want to see more,” the Pentagon official explained.

U.S. officials believe that when Moscow dominated East Europe, it directed the intelligence agencies of the Warsaw Pact to act as its surrogates--collecting secrets, spreading disinformation, training terrorists, exporting arms and explosives to foment revolutions, setting up security services in Third World nations, and the like.

The Kremlin’s orders went out through three channels, according to sources. KGB directives were passed through links between Communist parties. The GRU’s military orders were transmitted through the Warsaw Pact organization. And at the government-to-government level, requirements for stealing advanced technology and other economic-related secrets were shared through the Soviet-controlled Council for Mutual Economic Assistance.

Today, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and East Germany appear to be the most independent of Soviet control, officials indicated. The Hungarian government, now a center-right coalition, has disbanded its Interior Ministry, which ran all intelligence activities, including army military intelligence. Parliamentary oversight committees have been established to watch the new agencies.

Budapest, which has spoken of leaving the Warsaw Pact and is most eager to gain access to Western technology, has even established a “hot line” between the U.S. Customs Service and its customs officials to stop high-tech smuggling. It has promised “on-site inspection” by U.S. and West European officials to ensure that computers and other items sold to its factories are not re-exported or even relocated inside the country, according to Hungarian diplomats here.

And in an effort to win approval for a new consulate on the West Coast, preferably in Los Angeles, the Hungarians vowed to fully respect “the laws and security interests” of the United States--a sweeping and perhaps unprecedented pledge of good behavior by the trade and cultural officials who would be stationed there.

Poland’s intelligence apparatus apparently is less separated from the Soviets than is Hungary’s, U.S. officials indicated, and it may have been the main reason for Wolfowitz’s warning about continuing intelligence links.

When he visited Hungary and Poland last year, President Bush urged both nations to cut their intelligence ties to Moscow if they want to enjoy more Western trade and other concessions. East European sources said he received such assurances.

However, Warsaw may retain some security links with Moscow indefinitely as a hedge against a unified Germany in the future. As such, it will continue to see NATO as its chief military threat and intelligence target. To a lesser degree, the Czechoslovaks also see virtue in maintaining the Warsaw Pact.

“As long as the pact survives,” a defense official predicted, “the military intelligence agencies of East Europe have to continue trying to collect information to ‘define the NATO threat.’ They’ll be careful not to antagonize the West, but they’ll continue to be active in this sphere.”

Elsewhere in the East Bloc, Romania under the previous Ceausescu regime supported Libya and Palestinian terrorists, according to its former intelligence chief, Lt. Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa, but kept a chilly distance from the Soviets. Its newly elected government, even though dominated by former Communists, seems unlikely to move toward Moscow now.

Bulgaria’s intelligence services, which allegedly ordered the 1981 assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II at the KGB’s bidding, have long been considered the most subservient to Moscow. Bulgaria is expected to remain the closest Soviet ally.

One “wild card,” said a U.S. official, is “how much equity the KGB still has” in the Warsaw Pact countries. The KGB trained most of these intelligence officials, and the many relationships that developed could continue even if forbidden by official edicts, U.S. officials warned.