Review Is Ordered of FBI Procedures

Allegations that an FBI agent had spied for the Russians prompted the Justice Department on Tuesday to order an investigation of FBI counterespionage procedures. But experts said the study panel will face a daunting challenge.

Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft said he had asked William H. Webster, former head of the FBI and the CIA, to undertake a “comprehensive independent review of FBI procedures” used to prevent other nations from gathering U.S. secrets.

Former U.S. government officials and other experts said that the government already uses a variety of means--including regular polygraph testing, financial disclosure requirements and background investigations--to check for loyalty.

Yet potential traitors working within the counterintelligence apparatus start out with an edge: They typically know a lot about how to avoid detection, and they often can find out whether the government suspects them of spying.

Moreover, the federal government doesn’t want to go too far in intruding on the liberties of its employees--even those working in top-secret areas such as counterintelligence. That’s why the government has, again and again in recent decades, decided not to implement security measures that have been recommended by previous counterintelligence study panels, experts said.

“They’ll tighten up around the edges,” predicted Milt Bearden, a former CIA station chief. “But they won’t go too far. You’ve got to find a balance between security and our American concept of liberties.”

“I really don’t expect any changes,” said Melvin Goodman, a former CIA analyst who is now a senior fellow with the Center for International Security, a Washington think tank, and a professor of international security at the National War College.

Analysts said the FBI’s counterintelligence officials already face some of the tightest security restrictions of any U.S. employees.

They are required to undergo periodic polygraph tests. They must regularly disclose their income and financial holdings--to enable the government to see whether they have gained any sudden wealth that appears suspicious. And they are subject to investigations in which security personnel interview their friends and neighbors.

Security Measures Far From Foolproof

Security rules have been tightened further since 1994, when CIA official Aldrich H. Ames was discovered to have spied for the Russians for nine years.

But these measures are far from foolproof.

Ames’ spying, for example, went undetected by polygraph tests, experts noted.

Financial assets can be concealed. According to the FBI, the newest suspect, Robert Philip Hanssen--accused of spying for Moscow for the last 15 years--used overseas bank accounts and was also apparently paid in diamonds.

It has also become increasingly easy to conceal the origins of money by “laundering” it overseas--especially because some nations, such as Panama, are using American dollars as their currency.

And the Hanssen case shows how counterintelligence operatives can stay one step ahead of the law, officials said. Hanssen apparently never met with his alleged Russian contacts; indeed, they apparently did not know who he was until his arrest Tuesday.

And unlike Ames, authorities said, Hanssen was smart enough to conceal the fact that he was receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Russian government. He lived in a modest split-level home in Vienna, Va., a suburb of Washington.

“These people tend to know what they’re doing,” said John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, a Washington-based security policy organization.

In addition, as FBI Director Louis J. Freeh noted, technology has made the job of plugging leaks of information much tougher.

Easier to Walk Away With Data

As recently as the mid-1980s, Jonathan Jay Pollard, the Navy analyst who spied for the Israelis, needed to take thick piles of documents, Pike noted.

Today, a spy with access to an intelligence agency’s computers could theoretically “walk away with the whole place on one disk, in one day,” Pike said.

Pike said that in the area of computer security, the panel in fact may decide that there are productive steps to be taken.

Some analysts contend that the idea of imposing tight security runs counter to the natural inclinations of many officials, even at the top levels of government.

Ken Degraffenreid, a former intelligence director of the National Security Council, said that for four decades, study groups have looked at the problem and come up with “hundreds of solid, workaday things” the government could do to step up security. These include such mundane ideas as monitoring access to documents, locking safes and rooms and preventing the removal of files.

But he said that officials--even senior ones--find it simply too difficult to follow the rules.

Degraffenreid noted that even John M. Deutsch, a former director of central intelligence, was found to have flouted security rules with an unsecured computer at his home.

Degraffenreid said the bigger challenge was to find out what motivates American spies.

“The problem is, we don’t know what makes these guys want to do it,” he said.