How to Catch a Spy

Thomas Cavanagh was a Northrop Corp. employee with military secrets to sell. In search of a buyer, he called Soviet emissaries in the U.S., arranged a meeting and offered "Stealth" bomber technology for a piddling $25,000. Even for so little, his hosts were not about to accept. The FBI had intercepted his original call, and the men to whom he was hawking his wares were undercover FBI agents. He was arrested, convicted and sentenced to life.

The sting was an example of how technology, stepped-up surveillance and a cooperative get-tough approach at the FBI and CIA are helping the U.S. to spook out traitors. The record number of arrests during the past two years is partly due, no doubt, to a rise in the number of spies. "Espionage," says one Reagan Administration official, "is a growth industry." But more important, say many intelligence experts, the arrests stem from the hard-line counterespionage policies adopted by two consecutive Presidents.

From 1966 to 1977, few spies were arrested, and fewer still were prosecuted. To improve matters, the Carter Administration backed laws that permitted wiretapping of U.S. citizens suspected of espionage and restrained the practice of "graymail," in which a defense attorney could threaten to introduce classified information in court if the Government did not agree to a plea bargain. The Justice Department also began vigorously prosecuting all spy cases, despite potential diplomatic fallout. As a result, 50% of the past decade's arrests, indictments and convictions of alleged spies occurred in 1984-85.

According to its charter, the FBI runs Counterintelligence in the U.S., monitoring the activities of some 1,600 Communist agents; the CIA's work is limited to operations abroad. In J. Edgar Hoover's day, counterespionage was hampered by a lack of cooperation between the FBI and the CIA. "Hoover was difficult and vain," says one former top CIA official. "He thought he could run things by himself."

The wall of suspicion came down in the late 1970s, when Stansfield Turner and William Webster--classmates and friends at Amherst College--were appointed to run the CIA and FBI. "We made a pact right off the bat that we were going to work well together," Webster recalls. William Casey, the current CIA director, has continued this approach.

Under Reagan, the FBI's Counterintelligence budget has tripled, which means that the FBI can keep track of more suspects and conduct round-the-clock surveillance when necessary. (It can take 16 agents working in shifts to watch one suspect.) The Administration has also put an FBI agent on the staff of the National Security Council, a move that symbolizes concerns about the dangers of espionage.

Within the FBI, Webster has upgraded Counterintelligence work, formerly considered somewhat of a dumping ground, into a potential path to a senior position. He has also upgraded bureau technology: the FBI has spent millions of dollars on new computers that can cross-reference tips and information.

Despite some crack agents and top-flight hardware, however, the job of Counterintelligence remains scattershot. Four million people in the U.S. have access to classified information, but only a portion of the FBI's 8,800 agents are charged with counter-intelligence. Says Webster: "Our strategy is to focus on the known and suspected hostile intelligence officers, and through a spider-web approach, become aware of contacts they might seek to make." Still, many of the initial clues in recent cases have been tips from a spy's suspicious friends or colleagues.