TIME: Almanac 1990/1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso/time/080789/08078900.045

Text File | 1990-09-18 | 5.2 KB | 93 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.