Rodney Barker - Dancing with the Devil - Sex, Espionage and the U.S. Marines - The Clayton Lonetree Story

Furthermore, the KGB seemed to have miscalculated catastrophically in their handling of Lonetree in Vienna. Their first mistake was they misjudged Lonetree’s primary motives for working with them. He was in love with Violetta and he wanted friendship with Uncle Sasha. Money was not what interested him, and by not giving him continued access to Violetta, and putting things on a business footing, they were dooming the relationship.

Their biggest error, however, was when they attempted to pass him to Yuri Lysov, a.k.a. George, the senior KGB officer stationed in Vienna. At their one meeting, Lysov had set a more demanding, operational tone. He let Lonetree know that from here on out he would be expected to behave in a more efficient, productive manner. This scared Lonetree. Even as he agreed to make plans to return surreptitiously to the Soviet Union, he was fearful about his future. If the Soviets had played their cards right and delayed his turnover to another case officer, chances were Lonetree would never have turned himself in.

Of course, all of this was based on Clayton Lonetree’s memory of what he was asked, what he said, and what he did, which was not totally reliable, because some of his meetings with Uncle Sasha were occasions for heavy drinking. At one of their sessions, he reported, a strange thing had happened—after only one or two drinks, Lonetree felt ill and spent several hours in a daze. Vaguely he remembered a third party entering the apartment. His description of the incident sounded to Skinner as if he’d been drugged, which highlighted the fact that Lonetree was only able to testify to what he remembered.

In this instance hypnosis was tried as a method of enhancing his memory, but Lonetree was unable to fully enter a hypnotic state.

The question of reliability as it pertained to Lonetree’s statements was given further uncertainty by his idiosyncratic behavior during the course of the debriefing. “It was like he was operating in a different ether,” one of the intelligence officers observing him would comment. “Skinner would ask him a question about where he met Uncle Sasha, and it seemed to send Lonetree into some kind of trance. We were getting a profile of him on the camera and for what seemed like eons all he did was stare at the wall. Now remember, this is an acoustic room and there’s not a lot to look at on the walls. But he kept on staring until those of us watching are thinking, What the hell is with this guy? Some thought he was just being evasive. Others said No, that’s the way Indians are, he’s just roaming with the buffalo…. Then, when he finally answered, it was weird stuff. A total non sequitur: ‘You know, there are some very fine restaurants in Vienna.’ ”

Having had the benefit of the CIA psychologist’s report, Skinner brought a more encompassing understanding to Lonetree’s tics. But even he was getting anxious to put Lonetree on the polygraph so the truth could be determined.

Prior to the first polygraph examination, Skinner led Lonetree through a series of questions that focused on the key concerns: Before Cpl. Arnold Bracy recanted, he told investigators Lonetree had said he was letting Soviets into the embassy after working hours. Bracy said he’d seen Lonetree escorting a Soviet through the embassy. Bracy alleged Lonetree had solicited his assistance in resetting alarms after penetration had occurred in secure spaces. How much of that was true? Did Lonetree provide the Soviets with unauthorized access to the embassy? Did he allow a Soviet entry team to come in and install listening devices? Did he turn over classified documents? Did he plant bugs? To his knowledge, were any other Marines involved in these activities?

When Skinner asked him these questions, Lonetree denied virtually everything. But again, the odd character of his denial was disconcerting. There were a couple of times when it seemed Skinner had him on the verge of admitting to letting the Soviets in and collaborating with Bracy. When Skinner asked him, “Isn’t it true that…” instead of saying, “Hell, no,” or “That’s bullshit,” he’d sit there and his Adam’s apple would bob up and down and a tear would form in the corner of his eye and he’d look at the floor and then at the ceiling. On one occasion two minutes and twenty-two seconds lapsed between a question and Lonetree’s response.

This was not what most people would do if they were accused of something as serious as espionage. They would immediately deny it and move on to the next question. When Lonetree got like this, the intelligence officers observing him couldn’t help themselves; they would coach him. “Come on, Lonetree, come on. Say it. Say it.”

Then Lonetree would gulp, and what he would say was, “Oh, no, we didn’t do that.”

When it was the polygrapher’s turn to go over the prepared list of questions, it was impossible for the intelligence types gathered in the adjoining room to know what the instrument was registering while the exam was going on. All they knew was that Lonetree answered “No” to every single question. When at last the exam was completed and the polygrapher walked out with the charts in his hand, John Skinner and Angelic White were waiting for him in the hallway.

“Well?”

“He’s clean.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Nope. He’s clean.”

The full debriefing of Sgt. Clayton Lonetree would last for almost three months, during which time he would be given eight different polygraph examinations. Lonetree would continue to answer “No,” and the results of the polygraph examination would continue to be NDI: no deception indicated.

The Marine Spy Scandal was no longer page-one news by the time Sergeant Lonetree’s debriefing was finished, but the results were newsmaking nonetheless. No specifics, no details were given. The public was never told what questions were asked, nor Lonetree’s responses. “Sources familiar with the interrogation” were simply quoted as saying it was official now, the security disaster everyone feared apparently had never taken place. Sergeant Lonetree did have prohibited contacts with Soviet agents and did pass sensitive material to them, but there was no evidence of a spy ring in the Marine guard detachment in Moscow, and Soviet agents had not been allowed to roam through sensitive portions of the American Embassy.

At Eighth and I, and Quantico, it was like the end of a war. At long last it could be said that Sergeant Lonetree was the one and only Marine guilty of espionage, and the degree of damage he’d done was less than had been thought.

No knowledgeable counterintelligence person was prepared to say that Lonetree’s admissions were insignificant, however. The KGB, like any intelligence agency, was never satisfied with just one source of information. They were always checking the word of one informant against another, because historically they were suspicious of whatever they were told. When Lonetree confirmed the identities of intelligence agents, that meant the Soviets put them under twenty-four-hour surveillance and followed their every move to determine who their Soviet contacts were. This, in turn, conceivably could have led to the loss of human assets inside the Soviet Union, as well as setting up the now-known CIA agents for possible recruitment efforts within the Soviet Union; and when they were transferred to their next posts in Africa or Asia or wherever, the KGB residency there would be notified and once again the agent would be followed to determine his contacts, or targeted for an operation.

These were important issues in the intelligence business. They could compromise an operation or national security just as certainly as penetrating the code room and placing an electronic listening device on the communications equipment could. But they weren’t perceived as major in the press, where an outcry took place over the pitiful payoff. A demand arose that before this episode was dismissed, the witch hunt should be unpacked. A lot of innocent folks had had their careers blighted. The reputation of the Marine Corps had been tarnished. Millions of dollars had been spent removing, shipping, and replacing equipment. Relations between the superpowers had been severely strained. It wasn’t good enough to say an unfortunate but understandable overreaction had taken place. Errors had to be explained. Responsibility for this ludicrously overblown mess had to be assigned.