Soviet Bid To Recruit U.S. Officer As Agent

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28343, 31 July 1957, Page 11

Soviet Bid To Recruit U.S. Officer As Agent

(Rec. 9.20 p.m.) HEIDELBERG (West Germany). July 29 Headquarters of the United States Army in Europe alleged today that an unsuccessful Soviet I attempt had been made to recruit • high-ranking American intelligence officer to spy for the Russians. ■ The Army said that its counterintelligence investigators today handed over to West German authorities at Karlsruhe Irene Asch, aged 42, of Gera, East Germany. She had written and signed a full confession of her part in a plot to . renew a childhood acquaintance with the officer and to trv and get him to work for the Russians, the Army said. Asch had been employed bv the Soviet intelligence since 1955 an Army statement said. When the Soviet authorities discovered that she was a childhood friend of the wife of an American intelligence officer. she was ordered to come to West Germany and renew this acouaintance. She first visited the American officer’s home in April, 1956. At her second visit she asked him whether he would meet Soviet intelligence agents in Switzerland or Paris, indicating that the Russians wanted to enlist him as one of their agents. As a token of what he might expect later by way of payment, she gave him money, exoensive cameras, furs and other gifts, the Army statement said. The officer turned these over to the United States counterintelligences corps and they were later presented to the West German authorities as evidence. The American officer also informed his immediate superiors . They told him to continue meeting Asch and to five the im-

pression that he was interested in her offer, but to stall for time while the corps worked on the case in order to learn as much as possible about the plot. The United States Army statement did not disclose the name of the American officer involved. It described him as “fully trustworthy and loyal.” He had recently been reassigned to another appointment in the United States. American counter-intelligence agents approached Asch last April. She then made a full confession, the Army statement said. She said she agreed to co-operate with the Russians because she feared for the safety of her relatives in East Germany. After her confession she said she would ask the West German Government for political asylum.