Ex-Army Clerk Gets 18 Years for Spying

A former Army clerk at the National Security Agency was sentenced in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia to 18 years in prison, the maximum sentence, for selling secrets to the Soviet Union three decades ago. Robert S. Lipka, 51, pleaded guilty in May to conspiracy to commit espionage. He was arrested last year after his ex-wife turned him in. Lipka was trained as an intelligence analyst and had top security clearance with the NSA at Ft. Meade, Md., where he was responsible for distributing and destroying classified documents. Between 1965 and 1967, Lipka photographed documents with a camera provided by the Soviets and dropped the film off in a park for up to $1,000 a drop.