To stop it, he said, he considered taking his own life, and almost did. But when he realized he was incapable of pulling the trigger, he decided to approach the CIA station chief at the annual Christmas party at the ambassador’s residence.
The bulk of Clayton Lonetree’s confession ended there. But there was one more paragraph on the statement sheet that appeared to be tacked on as an afterthought. In fact it was NIS policy when interrogating a suspect to always leave them a way out at the end. To allow them to provide an explanation for their actions that made them feel somewhat justified. To give them a chance to put their crimes in a context that made them seem more comprehensible.
In this paragraph Lonetree addressed his motivations for doing what he did. “I would like to say I feel no hatred for Violetta. I was not involved in this incident to protect her. She really had nothing to do with it.” He went on to say he did not get involved in this for the money, either. “I guess some of my actions were based on my hatred for the prejudices expressed in the United States against Indians. What I did was nothing compared to what the white man and the United States government did to the American Indian one hundred years ago.”
Clayton Lonetree signed his statement after it was typed. But he also penned in a very last sentence: “I still have a great love for my country.”
4
Over the course of his interrogation Sergeant Lonetree had displayed a range of emotions. When he made a very damaging statement concerning his involvement with the Soviets and was asked if he realized he had been betraying his country, he would turn quiet, his eyes would go down, and he would clearly appear to be foundering on shame and remorse. Then there were moments when he was able to find some humor in his situation and the chances he took, or he would chuckle over something amusing that had happened with Violetta. At other times, when asked a pointed question, he would take an abnormally long break before answering, during which a kind of half smile would form on his face, almost as if he were doing a mental damage assessment about what he was about to say and how much it would hurt him.
It was this last impression, coupled with several elements to his story that didn’t ring right, that made the NIS agents suspect there was more to the story than what Lonetree had related. He said he’d repeatedly been asked to provide various documents and pieces of classified information, but claimed he refused to comply. So why had he received various monies from the Soviets? The KGB was not known as a fiscally generous organization. Nor was he voluntarily admitting that the Soviets were interested in information that any smart hostile intelligence service would want to know from a Marine security guard: What was the easiest access to the building? Where were the alarms and cameras in the Moscow Embassy? How could they be shut down without alerting other security systems?
Furthermore, based on their experience, the NIS agents could not conceive of the Soviets’ sending one of their agents from Moscow to Vienna with all the intricacies involved in moving a nondiplomat from Moscow to another country, as many times as Lonetree said Sasha had come and gone, and then brought a senior KGB case officer into the picture, unless they considered Lonetree a more valuable asset than he had admitted to being.
When they told Lonetree they thought he was withholding, omitting, maybe lying, he got that little smile on his face and remained silent.
So they brought in a new NIS agent, Tom Brannon, who was the regional polygrapher. Brannon had a legendary reputation within the organization for getting confessions, and the congenial Irishman led the interrogation that commenced on the twenty-ninth of December. He employed a variety of interrogatory techniques. He rephrased questions, looking for discrepancies and implausibilities in Lonetree’s story and highlighting them. He played up to Lonetree’s intellect: “Come on, Clayton, you don’t expect us to believe that. You’re an intelligent guy. Give us credit. Tell us what’s really going on.” He commented on body language: “Why are you so nervous? Aren’t you telling me the truth?”
The outcome was a second statement, which began with an explanation by Lonetree of why he left out certain information in his first statement. “The reasons are various. They include fear of entrapping myself and also I wanted to protect the Russian girl, Violetta.”
What he said he failed to report in his first statement, and parted with now, were the kinds of things the NIS agents suspected. Things like the fact that Sasha asked him, while he was in Moscow, to place a bug in the ambassador’s office space, which he said he refused to do. He did, however, say he supplied Sasha with floor plans of the entire American Embassy, going over them and marking the spaces according to who worked where. He also admitted to hand-writing out and signing a statement that read: “I am a friend of the Soviet Union, I will always be a friend of the Soviet Union, and will continue to be their friend.” He said it was no big deal to him to do that, he had done it at Sasha’s request, and it evidently pleased him, because after that Sasha offered him the opportunity to defect to the Soviet Union if he desired. Lonetree said he told Sasha he did not want to defect, but he did hope to return to Russia someday after he was out of the Marine Corps.
The gravest admissions in this second statement concerned his efforts to help the Soviets identify CIA personnel in both the Moscow and Vienna embassies. They were much more extensive than he had previously acknowledged.
At the end, Lonetree elaborated on his motives: “In conclusion I wish to advise that I became involved in activities with the KGB due to the intrigue of it. After I got involved I was unable to get out and was afraid of being compromised…. I regret that I ever got involved with the KGB and am sorry I did so, because I totally disbelieve in the Soviet system.”
After his second statement was typed and signed, Lonetree was asked if he would be willing to take a polygraph test.
“Sure,” he replied. “I have nothing to hide.”
The polygraph was set up and calibrated. Brannon then explained the examination and how the instrument worked, before asking Lonetree a series of four questions.
Other than discussed, did you provide anything to the Soviets that you have not told us about?
His response was “No.”
Other than discussed, did you receive anything from the Soviets that you did not tell us about?
His response was “No.”
Did you place any listening devices in the embassies?
His response was “No.”
Other than discussed, while in Moscow, did you provide any classified documents to the Soviets?
The response was “No.”
The examination portion of the process took approximately twenty minutes, after which Brannon went into an adjoining suite, where the results were printed out on a computer. Deception was indicated on all four questions.
Brannon came back out shaking his head. “The machine tells me you’re not giving us the truth.”
“But I am telling the truth, Mr. Brannon,” Lonetree protested.
“I believe you, boy. But you gotta convince this machine.”