THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, April 24, 1996 TAG: 9604240389
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY PIERRE THOMAS AND JOHN MINTZ, THE WASHINGTON POST
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Short : 50 lines
A Navy petty officer formerly based in Norfolk has been arrested in Orlando, Fla., after allegedly offering information about nuclear submarine technology to a Russian government official, U.S. officials said Tuesday.
Machinist mate 1st Class Kurt G. Lessenthien, an instructor at the Navy Nuclear Power School in Orlando, was arrested Monday following an investigation lasting several weeks by agents of the FBI and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service.
The FBI agents found out about Lessenthien's alleged offer to the Russians and sent an FBI agent posing as a Russian to contact him, the U.S. officials said. The sailor was arrested as he was in the process of passing information to the agent, a defense official told The Virginian-Pilot.
The Justice Department said that its investigation to date indicates that no classified information was passed on to any unauthorized person.
The data Lessenthien allegedly offered to provide was classified ``Top Secret,'' the FBI said.
It could not be learned Tuesday evening exactly how Lessenthien originally contacted Russian officials or how U.S. law enforcement discovered his alleged offer. But American agents routinely monitor Russian embassies and other facilities using wiretaps and physical surveillance.
Lessenthien, who turns 30 on Thursday, is being held at the Consolidated Naval Brig, Naval Station, in Norfolk. He had not been formally charged as of Tuesday night, a Navy official said, but the service has assumed responsibility for his prosecution.
It was unclear Tuesday how long Lessenthien has been assigned to the nuclear school. Before going there, he did tours of duty aboard the attack submarines Simon Lake and Albany, based in LaMaddalena, Italy, and Norfolk, respectively, and two ballistic missile subs, the Tennessee and the Henry M. Jackson, based in Kings Bay, Ga., and Bangor, Wa., respectively.
Having served aboard U.S. subs, Lessenthien was knowledgeable about the design and operation of submarine motors, which could be valuable to the Russian navy. The U.S. and Russian navies both try to design their submarine engines to be as quiet as possible to avoid detection.
A government source said Lessenthien, far from being a master spy, was ``clumsy'' in his dealings with the foreign officials and with the FBI. MEMO: Virginian-Pilot Washington correspondent Dale Eisman also contributed to
this report. by CNB