SPIES MET IN PENTAGON

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30452, 28 May 1964, Page 15

SPIES MET IN PENTAGON

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter —Copyright) STOCKHOLM, May 26. The self-professed “double spy,” Colonel Stig Wennerstroem, told investigators he sometimes handed espionage material to his Soviet contact at group meetings in the Pentagon in Washington, according to a report issued in Stockholm today.

The former diplomat told them his Russian employers found out he was also spying for the United States, and instructed him to maintain his contact with the Americans. That was just before he was appointed air attache in Washington in 1952. Before that, as air attache in Moscow for three years, his

tasks included gathering ’information for the Russians about the Royal Air Force \ “which was regarded at that ■ time as being the most effective." Today's report was a heavily censored version of the security police report on their interrogation of Wennerstroem, who is awaiting court judgment after his trial on charges of spying for Russia. Much of the trial was in camera. Bombing Targets The report quoted Wennerstroem as saying he gave the Russians details of American bombing targets in the Soviet

Union. He said Soviet intelligence was particularly interes- : ted in N.A.T.O. atomic 'strength. His work as a disarmament ’expert at the Foreign Ministry in Stockholm from 1961 until his arrest last year had been particularly valuable in this respect, he said. While in Washington, he

said, the Russians asked him 'on one occasion to find out lif the United States was pre- ; paring a pre-emptive strike against them. He was able to clear this up to the Russians’ satisfaction, the report said—without going into details. Code Signs Wennerstroem said he photographed documents on special film which could only be developed in Moscow. He met his contact in streets and parks in Washington, and sometimes “in the Pentagon when we were there together on a group visit, or when we met on a plane on a duty trip.”

; He said there were code :signs for meetings. “The left hand was always to be swinging freely. If you had anything to carry you kept it in your right hand. If there was ;any danger, you immediately put your left hand in your pocket. This meant the contact was not to show any sign of recognition.”