British security lapse attacked

Press, 26 October 1982, Page 6

British security lapse attacked

NZPA ’ London A-new row over security blew up yesterday between Britain and the United States over alleged British laxriess in keeping secrets. London’s national newspapers carried long reports about a story in the “New York Times,” quoting unidentified American officials as saying that a new espionage case in Britain is one of the longest and most damaging penetrations of Western intelligence since World War IL . ' The “New York Times” said that the Soviet Union was given information by its British source, enabling it to change its codes and radio frequencies to protect its The liberal “Guardian” newspaper said that “American security leaks” in the “New York Times” refer to “a security crisis at the Government Communications Headquarters in Cheltenham.” It said that Mrs Margaret Thatcher’s Government “now faces a fierce attack over security at the base.” The “Guardian” carried an interview with a retired Cheltenham employee, Alex Lawrie, who said that security at the centre is “just about good enough'to fend off a well-meaning drunk.” ; Last July, Geoffrey Arthur Prime, aged 44, a former translator of Russian at the

centre, was charged with espionage in communicating information over a 13-year period, from 1968 to 1981. Who Prime gave his information to was not stated and he awaits trial. Legal barriers prevent British newspapers from discussing the case, and Monday’s editions referring , to the “New York Times” report did not mention Prime. Washington is concerned because Britain and the Americans work closely together in eavesdropping, and exchange information gleaned from their listening posts around the world. Past security lapses by Britain date back to the war when Klaus Fuchs, a Britishsponsored German refugee, stole Anglo-American atom bomb secrets for Moscow. Over the next 35 years,.revelations . of the Burgess-Maclean-Philby-Blunt spy ring shook London-Washing-ton relations. Alex Lawrie worked as a linguist with 10,000 other staff at Cheltenham for 22 years before retiring last December, and is now a councillor in that town, 174 km north-west of London. Describing security lapses at the centre, Lawrie told the “Guardian” that internal security officers ignored warnings from the staff and were more concerned with ritual than efficiency. “I always had the impression that the Russians knew

a great deal more about G.C.H.Q. than I did. It’s such a huge place. It’s inconceivable that the information wouldn’t get out. Infiltration seems to be par for the course,” he said. When a work-force of decorators without security clearance was given the run of the centre at night and rifled desks of cigarettes and books, security officials said that they were not responsible for personal possessions. “We couldn’t seem to get it through to them that this was a dreadful breach of security,” said Lawrie. He said that passes were not checked closely and one man got in with his wife’s pass. Chapman Pincher, a journalist with security contacts, said in the conservative “Daily Express” that British officials last week leaked details of the defection of a Teheran-based Soviet diplomat, Vladimir Kuzichkin, to “offset some impending disaster,” a reference to the forthcoming Cheltenham spy trial. j Kuzichkin reportedly gave to Britain names of his contacts in the Iranian Tudeh (Communist) Party. Pincher said that in the .“cynical world” of spying, to weaken Soviet plans to bring Leftists to power in Iran, Britain passed the names to the Khomeiny regime, and the Tudeh contacts have since “disappeared.”