U.S. Opens Trial of Man Accused of Giving Agents’ Names to KGB

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — The government opened its case Monday against former Army counterintelligence agent Craig Smith, accused of disclosing the identities of six U.S. double agents to the KGB for $11,000.

“A straight trade--money for information--those were his words,” U.S. prosecutor Joseph Aronica told the federal court jury of nine women and three men.

“The salable item he had was U.S. intelligence information, and the only buyers were the Soviets. . . . They made their offer, and he took it.”

Called Desperate

Aronica painted Smith--whose Utah video company went bankrupt four months before his meeting with the Soviets--as a man desperate for money.

He traced meetings in Tokyo with KGB officer Victor Okunev in 1983, saying Smith sold out the six CIA, FBI and National Security Agency operatives for $11,000 and the promise of as much as $150,000 more. Okunev was a first secretary in the Soviet Embassy in Tokyo.

The government will prove its case using confessions Smith made to the FBI, Aronica said.

A. Brent Carruth, a lawyer for Smith, 42, of Bellevue, Wash., denied that such evidence is available. “There is no ‘I confess,’ ” he said.