Damming a Leak

When Samuel Loring Morison, a ship analyst at the U.S. Naval Intelligence Support Center in Suitland, Md., noticed three photos of a Soviet aircraft carrier lying on a colleague's desk, he thought they might be of interest to Jane's Defense Weekly, a British magazine. Morison, a part-time editor of a sister publication, filched the photos, which had been taken by an American KH-11 satellite, clipped the "Secret" markings off the corners and mailed the pictures to London.

Such disclosures are often called leaks, but to a Government plagued by spy scandals, Morison's action was a crime. The Reagan Administration used the Espionage Act of 1917 to charge its employee with spying. Although the Soviet Union had already obtained a stolen manual for the KH-11 satellite, prosecutors claimed that publication of the pictures gave the Soviets valuable information about the satellite's performance. Last week a federal jury in Baltimore convicted Morison on two counts of espionage and two counts of theft of Government property. Morison, 40, grandson of the late naval historian Samuel Eliot Morison, faces up to 40 years in prison and a $40,000 fine.

The case was the first in which the U.S. Government successfully used espionage statutes to convict an individual for providing classified information to the press rather than to a foreign power. "This will have a chilling effect on public discussion of important military matters," said Tony Rood, a member of Morison's defense team. Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Schatzow disagreed. But he said he does hope the verdict will cut off leaks at their source: Government employees.

The Administration's security concerns were underscored last week by a report in the Wall Street Journal that Edward Howard, a former CIA officer wanted on espionage charges, had helped the Soviets capture and possibly execute a valuable informant. The Journal said Howard had exposed A.G. Tolkachev, a Russian who had long provided the U.S. with Soviet military information. Tolkachev was apparently detained in June, and has not been heard from since.