Spying, deception synonymous with Silicon Valley

Press, 24 October 1984, Page 20

Spying, deception synonymous with Silicon Valley

NZPA-Reuter Los Angeles Surveillance cameras whirr from-the rooftops of the long lines of factories while security cars patrol below. Giant notices tell technicians not to leave discarded papers in baskets and to wipe out formulas on blackboards before going home. Another warning says, “Button your lips in bars.” These wartime-style precautions have been put up in Silicon Valley, the centre of the high technology outside San Francisco, and in the vast defence industry establishments throughout California. F6r the state best known for sun, surf, broad beaches, and Disneyland has become the nation’s espionage capital. The army of international spies, industrial experts brought in to steal other companies’ secrets, and “fake flag” operators who send equipment supposedly to a friendly country knowing it will end up elsewhere, is growing in the sunshine state, say F. 8.1. agents. “It is a one way traffic, we develop and they steal,” one agent said.

The latest case involved a 20-year F. 8.1. veteran. Richard Miller, aged 47, the father of eight children who was a member of the F.8.1.’s counter-intelligence division in Los Angeles, and who was accused recently of passing secrets to an alleged Soviet spy, Svetlana Ogorodnikova. F.B.L agents alleged that Miller, who worked for the agency for 20 years, walked into the classic trap, known

in the intelligence world as “the honeypot” of sex and money. Ogorodnikova, a pale, slim blonde, seduced Miller. Her husband, Nikolay Ogorodnikov, promised him 565,000 in gold and cash for United States secrets, the agents alleged. Miller and the Soviet couple are being held in jail without bail, the latest in a line of alleged spies to be imprkoned in California. The espionage potential in the state is enormous. The American Electronics Association estimates California has 4500 high-techno-logy companies, four times as many as any other state. Along with its giant aircraft industry, California also has 108 military bases and smaller depots. In one of the most celebrated spy cases in the state, Christopher Boyce, an avid falconer, was sentenced to 40 years imprisonment for selling details of a secret United States satellite communications system to the Soviet Union. He escaped from prison in 1980 after serving three years and was recaptured 19 months later. Boyce’s former classmate, Andrew Lee, is serving a life sentence for delivering secrets to Soviet agents. A Pole, Marian Zacharski, is serving a life sentence imposed in 1981 for conspiring to send secret documents on military weapons and a radar system to Poland. An alleged accomplice, William Bell, a radar engineer, was sentenced to

eight years imprisonment. An ’ electronics expert, James Harper, was sentenced this year to life imprisonment for selling missile secrets to Polish intelligence agents. In the field of industrial espionage, the Japanese Hitachi and Mitsubishi corporations were each fined 510,000 for conspiring to transport secrets from the 1.8. M. computer company to Japan. A public relations aide told of a group of Japanese who visited an automation equipment laboratory. An employee later reported he had seen a sketch of a section of-a piece of equipment developed by the laboratory on a blackboard in a nearby motel. It seemed each member of the Japanese group had memorised a segment and had drawn that section on the board, the aide said. However, F. 8.1. agents said the numerous “false flag” operators cause more damage to the United States defence system than the more celebrated spies. The operators buy electronic equipment and send it to friendly countries, including West Germany, in boxes labelled as car parts or washing machines, the agents said. Exporters in these countries smuggle-the equipment to r eastern Europe, they said. Other officials estimated the value of this equipment sent each year at $1.5 billion. The United States Customs Service has recruited 300 additional agents in the last two years to try to stop the flow.