Third Marine Held in Sex-Spy Investigation

WASHINGTON —  A third Marine security guard has been arrested in the expanding investigation of a sex-and-spy scandal at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, the Pentagon said Tuesday.

Staff Sgt. Robert Stanley Stufflebeam, who was assistant commander of the detachment of 28 Marine guards until last May, is being held in the brig at Camp Pendleton, Calif., on suspicion of “having associations with Soviet women on several occasions,” said Robert Sims, the Pentagon’s chief spokesman.

Second Marine Charged

Sims also disclosed that the Marine Corps had brought formal espionage and conspiracy charges against Cpl. Arnold Bracy, who was arrested last week. Bracy was accused of joining Sgt. Clayton J. Lonetree in a scheme to allow KGB agents access to sensitive areas in the embassy.

Lonetree, who was arrested in December, has been charged with multiple counts of espionage, an offense punishable by death under military law.

Stufflebeam, 24, of Bloomington, Ill., was arrested Sunday at Camp Pendleton, where he is assigned to the 1st Marine Division. The Pentagon said he is being held on suspicion of violating two articles of the Uniform Code of Military Justice: failing to report all contacts with foreign nationals and making false official statements that no such contacts had occurred.

“He is not currently suspected of offenses other than these,” Sims said when asked whether investigators believe that Stufflebeam had joined Lonetree and Bracy in the alleged espionage activities at the embassy, considered the most sensitive of all U.S. diplomatic posts.

Lonetree, 25, and Bracy, 21, allegedly became involved sexually with two Soviet women--one a translator at the embassy, the other an embassy cook--and allowed Soviet agents to “peruse” such secret facilities as the embassy’s communications room, where messages are encoded and decoded.

‘Acted as a Lookout’

The “charge sheet” against Bracy, released Tuesday by the Marine Corps, says Lonetree escorted Soviet spies through the embassy while Bracy “acted as a lookout, monitoring, silencing and securing various alarms which were set off” by Lonetree and the Soviet agent. It said Bracy at one point was paid $1,000 by Lonetree.

The document said the embassy intrusions occurred between January and March, 1986. It also said Bracy had contact with the same Soviet agent with whom Lonetree dealt--”Aleksiy G. Yefimoy, AKA (also known as) Uncle Sasha”--and with a woman identified as Galina Nikolaevna Golotina “during the period June to August, 1986.” This was after Lonetree was transferred from the Moscow embassy in March, 1986.

Stufflebeam was the No. 2 man in the embassy’s Marine detachment during part of the time that Lonetree and Bracy served in Moscow. Before his yearlong tour of duty in the Soviet capital, he had served at embassies in Zimbabwe and Somalia and had received a “meritorious” promotion, Marine records disclosed. He joined the Marines after graduation from high school in 1980 and re-enlisted last May for another six years.

Detachment Recalled

Stufflebeam’s arrest resulted from the Naval Investigative Service’s probe of the Marine guards in Moscow, officials said. To facilitate that investigation, officials announced Monday, the entire Marine detachment is being recalled to the United States and replaced by Marines being transferred from other embassies and from bases in the United States.

Broader investigations also are being conducted by the Pentagon and the State Department. William Brown, U.S. ambassador to Thailand, was named Tuesday to take charge of the State Department’s inquiry, department spokeswoman Phyllis Oakley said.

Oakley said Brown’s mandate has not yet been determined. She said that he may travel to Moscow for an on-the-spot examination and that officials assigned to the embassy may be called back to Washington for questioning.

“The performance of all involved is under review,” she said.

Brown, a career Foreign Service officer, has been ambassador to Thailand since 1985. He previously was deputy chief of mission in Tel Aviv and served two tours in Moscow, as a political officer from 1966 to 1968 and as political counselor in 1977 and 1978.