Guards Reportedly Curbed in Protecting New Embassy

WASHINGTON — U.S. Marine guards in Moscow were told to ignore anyone found after hours at the site of a bug-riddled new embassy building, according to a former head of the guard program, a congressional memo disclosed Tuesday.

Guards were also told by “the embassy in Moscow” to quit asking strangers for identification and kept from searching the boxes and bags that Soviet laborers brought to and from the new embassy construction site, according to a memorandum that discussed testimony expected to be given today by a retired Marine colonel who once ran the embassy guard program.

Stopped From ‘Doing Job’

Moscow guards, the memorandum said, were “prevented from doing the job they thought they were sent there to perform.”

Congressional panels are examining the Marines’ guard program in light of the so-called sex-for-secrets scandal.

The new embassy building in Moscow is honeycombed with sophisticated listening devices installed by Soviet laborers during construction, which has been halted. There have been recommendations that the multimillion-dollar building be abandoned or at least partly torn down and rebuilt.

The staff memorandum dealt largely with Tuesday’s testimony by a Navy psychologist about ways to select the best young men for the guard program, but it gave members of the Armed Services policy and personnel subcommittees a preview of what to expect during today’s appearance by retired Col. David Mabry and four former detachment commanders.

“Tomorrow, we will be hearing from a former battalion commander who will say that the embassy in Moscow ordered the Marines to stop asking strangers seen inside the embassy for their IDs, prevented the Marines from searching the boxes and bags that Soviet laborers brought onto and took off the new embassy construction site and forbade construction site guards from apprehending or even questioning anyone seen on the grounds after hours.

“In sum, Marines were prevented from doing the job they were sent there to perform. They ended up with no ‘sense of what they were doing or why,’ ” the memo said.

Psychologist Testifies

Testifying Tuesday was Lt. Cmdr. Forrest Sherman, assigned since April as a full-time psychologist for the Marine guard school at Quantico, Va., where Sgt. Clayton J. Lonetree is being court-martialed on charges of becoming sexually involved with a Soviet woman and passing sensitive information to the Soviet secret police when serving as a guard at the embassy in Moscow.

Witnesses identified only as “intelligence officers” called “Big John” and “Little John” testified Tuesday at Lonetree’s court-martial, as part of the proceedings were closed to the public for the second day.