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- THE WEEK, Page 15NATIONGotcha!
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- The CIA's most embarrassing turncoat is nabbed in Stockholm
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- A daring escape from an FBI surveillance team one sticky New
- Mexico night in 1985 demonstrated Edward Lee Howard's mastery of
- the spy trade he learned at the Central Intelligence Agency.
- With his wife at the wheel, Howard propped up a dummy in the
- passenger seat and, on a tight turn, rolled out onto the
- roadway. Months later he surfaced in Moscow, the only
- full-fledged CIA operator to defect during the cold war. The
- fugitive double agent eventually showed up in Stockholm and last
- week was arrested by Swedish authorities.
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- The CIA erred grievously by ignoring Howard's drug and
- alcohol abuse when it picked him to spy in Moscow, the most
- sensitive of cold war assignments. In a major violation of
- procedures designed to compartmentalize any one officer's
- knowledge, Howard was allowed to learn of practically all the
- major intelligence operations in the Soviet capital. Agency
- insiders say several CIA agents were caught and executed and
- that Howard "virtually wiped out the Moscow station." Despite
- the absence of an extradition treaty for spying, the Justice
- Department says it is "determined" to bring Howard to trial in
- the U.S.
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