Spies Who Won’t Come in From the Cold War : Intelligence: Despite the easing of tensions between the United States and Russia, the CIA is still spooked.

At a recent white-tie dinner in Washington, Russian Ambassador Vladimir Lukin found himself seated across from CIA Director Robert M. Gates. The envoy from the former “evil empire” turned amiably to his dinner companion and said, “So when are we going to get together and make some new rules for spying on each other?”

Gates, who built a career around distrust of the Soviet Union and all it stood for, expressed guarded interest in the idea. He encouraged Lukin to discuss it with Yevgeny Primakov, the head of the Russian intelligence service that took over the espionage functions of the now-defunct Soviet KGB.

But don’t expect U.S. and Russian spooks to join hands and agree anytime soon on the kind of spying they will and will not do in each other’s country. Suspicion runs too deep--particularly on the U.S. side.

Gates and other U.S. officials say that covert Russian intelligence-gathering in the United States has barely abated since August’s post-putsch revolution. They contend it is far too early to say that the United States and Russia will soon become friends, much less allies. And as for the establishment of some sort of “gentlemen’s agreement” on spying between Gates and Primakov, the CIA remains distinctly skeptical.

“One of them is not a gentleman,” said a senior government official who shares Gates’ deep-seated skepticism about Russian intentions. “The KGB and CIA were never the same. Primakov is not a real nice guy. He’s affiliated with their past. We will be real cautious about any arrangement.”

A few weeks before his encounter with Gates, Lukin had raised the possibility of some form of cooperation on intelligence matters at a news conference at the Russian Embassy in Washington. He said his government would like to open talks on phasing out or eliminating “all the harmful part of activity in this field.”

But he acknowledged that obstacles remain, noting--accurately--that U.S. spending on intelligence activities has remained virtually unchanged.

From the U.S. standpoint, the chief impediment to improved relations between the two intelligence services is the continued high level of Russian espionage activity in the United States.

Wayne Gilbert, the senior FBI official responsible for thwarting hostile intelligence activities directed against the United States, said there has been no apparent reduction in secret intelligence gathering here by the Russian foreign intelligence service, now known by its Russian acronym SVR.

“In our business, counterintelligence, we would have anticipated, based on their statements, some lessening of their activities. We have seen little or no evidence of a reduction in covert intelligence-gathering activities by the Russians,” Gilbert said. “My job is to neutralize their activities. It’s still significant, and we’d like it to be a lot less.”

Some analysts have suggested that much of the Russian espionage activity is driven merely by inertia--hundreds of agents in the field are continuing their work until given orders to cease or return home. Gilbert rejected that view. He likened the Russian intelligence apparatus to a supertanker that takes five miles to change course. He said that the ship remains on course and “we haven’t seen any orders from the bridge to change.”

Gilbert said there had been a shift in Russian intelligence targets in the United States. Russian spies are less interested in distinctly military targets and have shifted their attention to stealing scientific, trade and technical secrets.

But even if Russian activity continues at a high level, Gilbert said, spying by the other former Soviet republics and the former Warsaw Pact countries of Eastern Europe has almost come to a complete standstill. As far as the FBI knows, there are no Ukrainian spies operating in the United States, and the formerly aggressive Bulgarians and other Eastern European services have quit spying in the United States completely, he said.

“We are very satisfied they have ceased intelligence-gathering activities,” he said.

As a result, the United States has begun some informal exchanges with these governments. Although the Administration sent no official representative to a privately sponsored conference of intelligence agencies in Sofia, Bulgaria, earlier this spring, former CIA Director William E. Colby attended.

Colby said the former East Bloc governments were interested in advice on how to operate an intelligence service in a democratic system. Discussions were held on such matters as how to separate foreign intelligence-gathering and domestic law enforcement, activities that under Communist regimes were generally conducted by the same organization. The new democracies also were interested in how--or whether--civilian oversight of intelligence works and how to assure that human rights are respected.

The former CIA chief said that some of the Eastern European countries were struggling because they had carried out a wholesale housecleaning in their intelligence services and now find they have no technical expertise. In others, the broom did not sweep clean enough and the “new boys” at the top find themselves undercut by remaining elements of the old Communist-led agencies.

Colby also said that contacts between U.S. intelligence and its former foes in the East were expanding on targets of mutual concern. “We have plenty of common enemies: terrorists, nutty nationalists, fundamentalists, builders of secret weapons of mass destruction,” Colby said.

But he noted that such intelligence-sharing was still the exception rather than the rule. The United States, he said, remains “the suspicious one.”

“We are the impediment,” Colby said. “We’re the ones still spending $300 billion on defense--in a totally new world.”

A senior CIA official, who asked not to be identified, said the agency has shared intelligence with the Russians and received useful information in return. But the swaps have always been limited to third-party targets--drug traffickers, arms dealers, terrorist groups. “We don’t want to bring them up to our level,” he said.

But there have been no exchanges, not even any preliminary discussions, about establishing new rules of the espionage game between the two former archenemies, this official said, adding: “That cuts too close to the bone. It’s too fragile for the governments to talk about at this point.”

It will be years, if ever, before the United States and Russia have the kind of easygoing, informal relationship that the U.S. and British spy agencies maintain. And even among the friendliest of intelligence services, there are still layers and layers of secrets. All understandings are tacit, and behavior is moderated more by the threat of getting caught than by any firm agreements, officials said.

Colby noted that the United States does not conduct covert intelligence-gathering operations against Britain or Canada. Most information the U.S. government would want is available through open sources, diplomatic channels or by confidential request to Ottawa or London.

“We don’t carry out those kinds of activities there,” the former spy chief said. “How would it look if some operation were exposed?”

Roy Godson, a professor of national security studies at Georgetown University and an expert on intelligence, said that Washington and Moscow have had a longstanding, unwritten agreement not to physically harm each other’s agents. Beyond that, he indicated, virtually anything goes.

Even if the two former enemies grow closer politically, he said, intelligence operatives on both sides will remain wary.

“There is no such thing as a friendly intelligence service,” Godson said. “. . . No matter how friendly the government is, the intelligence service must be seen as less than benign.”

Times staff writer Doyle McManus contributed to this article.