TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/080789/08078900.045

Text File | 1992-09-23 | 5.3 KB | 105 lines

                                                                                NATION, Page 16

First the Verdict, Then the Trial


U.S. agents shadow -- but do not arrest -- spy suspect Felix
Bloch

By Bruce Van Voorst


    "Hostile surveillance" is a technique used by police to
pressure a suspect by letting him know he is being watched. The
FBI's investigation of Felix Bloch, the American diplomat
suspected of espionage, by last week had mushroomed beyond
hostility into full-blown hysteria. When Bloch and his daughter
drove from suburban Chappaqua, N.Y., into Manhattan, they were
followed by a posse of federal officers, news reporters, camera
crews and, said Government sources, a carload of KGB agents.

    Within days, Bloch became the most intensely hounded public
official since Oliver North. Justice Department sources
whispered that the Austrian-born Bloch was not only a Communist
spy but also an Austrian lackey: as deputy chief of the American
mission in Vienna, he had argued against barring Austrian
President Kurt Waldheim from the U.S. A Viennese newspaper
chimed in that Bloch was also a skirt chaser: police in Vienna
interviewed a call girl with whom he had had a "friendship" for
several years. In New York City Ronald Lauder, a former U.S.
Ambassador to Austria and now a Republican candidate for mayor,
claimed he had so distrusted Bloch that he had him fired. Lauder
backed down when the State Department pointed out that Bloch was
reassigned to Washington in a normal rotation of duties.

    Even George Bush got into the act, telling reporters that
the case against Bloch was a "very serious matter." That was as
far as the Government was willing to go on an official level.
The State Department confirmed that Bloch is being investigated
for a "compromise of security which has occurred," but at week's
end no charges had been filed against him, and he remained on
paid leave from the department at an estimated $80,000 annual
salary. Austrian officials confirmed that they were
investigating a "phony Finn" who had traveled to Vienna several
times on a forged passport. U.S. officials have fingered him as
Bloch's contact.

    As investigators and reporters jostled for scraps of
information about yet another apparent traitor, did anyone care
that under the law Bloch was still presumed innocent? His case
may indeed prove to be the most serious spy scandal to come out
of the State Department since the Alger Hiss affair. But, wrote
columnist Lars-Erik Nelson of the New York Daily News, Bloch "is
also a U.S. citizen, entitled to due process before execution."
Charles Schmitz, vice president of the American Foreign Service
Association, said the baying after Bloch was "terrible either
way -- for his rights if innocent, for the case if guilty."

    When news of the scandal broke, much of the case against
Bloch still consisted of statements from intelligence sources
and evidence gathered by methods that might not even be
admissible at a trial. Under U.S. law, direct evidence is
required of the transfer to foreigners of damaging secret
information. Sources claim that Bloch, 54, a 30-year State
Department veteran, was photographed passing a briefcase to a
known Soviet agent in Paris. Reportedly, the same agent later
tipped Bloch off to the investigation: "A bad virus is going
around, and we believe you are now infected."

    But American investigators would be hard pressed to prove
what was in the briefcase. "While the Soviets have the
documents, we're stuck with suspicions," said one. Almost every
major spy conviction depends heavily on the suspect's
cooperation. The New York Times reported that Bloch told the FBI
he was working for "many years" for the KGB and had received "a
lot of money," but he refused to talk further about specific
acts of espionage.

    Most critical to the assessment of possible damage, it was
not clear whether Bloch's alleged work for the Soviets began
while he was in Vienna, from 1980 to 1987, or when he served in
Berlin, from 1970 to 1975. As the second-ranking diplomat in the
Vienna embassy, including a ten-month stint as charge, or acting
ambassador, Bloch had access to U.S. diplomatic traffic on East
European and Soviet issues as well as worldwide regional
reports. He was aware of CIA activities, if not the names of
actual agents, in one of the world's most active intelligence
arenas, the Austrian capital. As one of eleven office directors
in the Bureau of European and Canadian Affairs in Washington,
Bloch also had access to the National Intelligence Daily, a
highly classified summary.

    State Department colleagues speculate that if Bloch turned
to the Soviets in Vienna, it may have been out of frustration.
A competent diplomat, but a dour, moody man, Bloch was deeply
offended at having to serve under two inexperienced political
appointees. He dismissed former Ambassador Helene von Damm as
a "nut" and Lauder as a "total disaster." After returning to the
U.S. in 1987, Bloch openly complained about not getting an
ambassadorial post. If, however, he was recruited long ago in
Berlin, the frustration theory might not hold.

    Unless Bloch confesses, the U.S. may never learn his
motives or how much damage he may have done. And so far he has
held his own remarkably well against the mass-media version of
the third degree.