Wife Doubts Espionage

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31112, 15 July 1966, Page 13

Wife Doubts Espionage

(N.Z. Press Assn. —Copyright) WASHINGTON, July 14.

The wife of a retired United States Army lieutenant-colonel accused of conspiring to give important American atomic and military secrets to the Russians said yesterda y her husband could not possibly have committed such a crime.

“If there’s any power in me I’ll prove he did not do whatever they said he did. because that man is too kind —there are too many people to prove it,” a tearful Mrs William H. Whalen said in a television interview.

Her 51-year-old husband, a veteran intelligence officer, was arrested by the F. 8.1. on Tuesday at his fashionable home in Alexandria, Virginia. Mrs Whalen told reporters that she used to work for the Government, and knew all about security—“ That’s why I never asked about what he was doing ... I wasn’t even allowed to go into his office when he was in Japan.” “I don’t see how this could happen . . ~” she continued. “I don’t believe it ... It just isn’t true , w ~ He never said

anything about this to me.” According to the indictment, Colonel William Henry Whalen, while holding a position with the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon, was paid £N.Z. 2000 by two Russian Embassy employees for supplying defence secrets. Double Agent

Meanwhile, the State Department has announced that one of its employees, acting as a double agent, had foiled an attempt by two Czech diplomats to bug an office in the State Department building with an electronic device.

The department demanded that one of the Czechs, the Second Secretary, Juri Opatrny, leave the United Staes within three days. It informed the United Nations Secretary General U Thant, of the activities of the second diplomat, Zdenek Pisk, npw First Secretary pf the Czech mission at the United Nations.

The department announced a promotion and an honour award for Frank John Mrkva, aged 38, an employee of its passport office, who acted as a double agent for more than four years. Mrkva, whose parents came from Czechoslovakia, had 48 meetings with the two Czechs, who paid him 3400 dollars. At their request Mrkva went through the motions of installing a listening device in [the office of the department's

Director of East European Affairs. But the Czechs, who also wanted to “bug” the office of the Under-Secretary of State. Mr George Ball, only got about 20 minutes of apparently harmless transmission before United States officials turned off the device. It was the first disclosed effort to “bug” the State Department, although there have been announced Communist atttempts to “bug” United: States Embassies abroad. 1