After 15 Years at the NSA, Russian Linguist Flips His Espionage Switch and Gets Prison Time

On this date in espionage history, December 6, 1986, Ronald Pelton was given three concurrent life sentences for committing espionage on behalf of Russia.

Though at the time of his volunteering to work for the KGB, Pelton was not employed by the U.S. government, Pelton had previous access to some of the most sensitive signals intelligence secrets of the United States. In 1965, following his active duty years with the U.S. Air Force, Pelton, a Russian linguist joined the National Security Agency (NSA). He resigned from the NSA in 1979 having been with the agency for almost 15 years.

The Chicago Tribune described Pelton’s situation, “In 1979 Pelton declared bankruptcy. He listed debts of $64,650 and assets of $6.80 in cash, $8 in a checking account, four old cars, a motorcycle, a $10 watch, five pairs of shoes, a razor and a bowling ball.’ The paper continued, “Pelton, his wife and four children lived in a run-down house near a dump in rural Maryland. Neighbors complained to health authorities that the house was a hazard. At the same time, Pelton had gone deeply into debt trying to build a new house a few miles away.”

In January 1980, he opted to leverage his knowledge in hopes of scoring a payday. He volunteered this knowledge to the Soviet Union.

Pelton Volunteers to the KGB

On January 14, 1980, at 1653 hours, Pelton telephoned the Soviet Union Embassy in Washington D.C. to volunteer. The call was answered by the Embassy’s switchboard operator who followed the protocol for “call-ins” and transferred the call to the Embassy security officer, who was a KGB counterintelligence officer.

The KGB officer who took Pelton’s call that January day was Vitaliy Yurchenko. The Soviet used the throw-away alias of Vladimir Sorokin, given he didn’t know with whom he was talking. Pelton for his part did not identify himself beyond the the basic facts. He claimed to be associated with the U.S. Government and had information of interest to discuss.

Yurchenko invited Pelton to visit the Embassy, and Pelton agreed. Pelton visited the Embassy in person the next evening – January 15. (See transcript at end of this piece).

Pelton arrived as planned and sat down with Yurchenko and discussed with him his desire to share with the KGB secrets, which Pelton had in his memory from his 15 years of service. Yurchenko, no doubt was skeptical of Pelton’s memory until he began sharing information on a variety of NSA programs.

Though the FBI had intercepted the phone call from Pelton to the Soviet Embassy, and filmed a sandy-haired, bearded man walking into the Embassy at around 1430 hours on January 15, they thought nothing of the clean-shaven Soviet worker, who departed the mission via a side entrance some three and a half hours later, at 1800 hours. That worker was Pelton in disguise.

Damage done by Pelton

On January 15, 1980, Pelton’s espionage career began. He was on the KGB’s payroll. Over the course of the next five years, Pelton met with the KGB a number of times, to include multiple trips to Vienna, Austria where he was debriefed at length. Over the course of his years of espionage, he was paid $35,000 (U.S dollars). The damage he inflicted upon the U.S. signals intelligence community was worth many hundreds of times that amount to the Soviet Union.

Pelton was blessed with a remarkable memory, and unlike other government insiders who have opted to break trust and purloined classified documents to provide to adversaries of the United States, Pelton, like Ana Belen Montes with Cuba, relied on his immense memory.

In October 1980, Pelton flew to Vienna where he stayed in a Soviet controlled apartment for four days of debriefings by the KGB. He revealed many things, including the existence of Ivy Bells.

Ivy Bells

The highly secretive joint CIA/NSA/Navy operation to tap the communications between the Soviet Pacific Fleet located at the naval base in Petropavlovsk and the mainland headquarters carried the code name, “Ivy Bells.”

In October 1971, the Ivy Bells operation launched. The activity took place out of sight, indeed it was taking place at a depth of 400-feet, deep within the Sea of Okhotsk, where the USS Halibut’s (SSN 587) divers emplaced a 20-foot-long listening device on the five-inch cable carrying Soviet military communications.

The operation continued for ten years, with the U.S. Navy showing its grit by having divers surreptitiously service the device on a monthly basis to retrieve and replace the tapes used to capture the Soviet communications. These tapes were delivered to NSA for processing. It was during the processing of the Soviet naval intercepts where Pelton became aware of the existence of Ivy Bells.

The operation ended in 1981, just months after Pelton’s first Austria debrief. U.S. satellites observed the Soviet navy had deployed warships and a salvage vessel in the vicinity of the Ivy Bell device. Indeed, it would later be confirmed, the Soviets recovered the device, thus bringing Ivy Bells to an end and cementing Pelton as a bona fide source for the KGB. The 20-foot long device is now on display in at the Great Patriotic War Museum in Moscow.

Pelton identified as a spy for the Soviet Union

In August 1985, a colonel in the KGB’s First Department of the KGB’s First Chief Directorate, which supervises intelligence gathering in the United States and Canada, walked into the U.S. Embassy in Rome and asked to defect.

After determining the KGB officer’s bona fides, the CIA arranged for the defector to be discreetly brought to the United States for debriefing. The KGB colonel was none other than Vitaly Yurchenko.

During one of his initial debriefings in a Northern Virginia safehouse, Yurchenko obliquely identified Pelton to his interlocutors. He opted for some reason not to share Pelton’s full name, yet shared sufficient information that over the course of two months, the FBI/NSA determined Pelton’s identity.

A voice analysis of Pelton taped phone call of January 14, 1980, confirmed Pelton’s identity. On November 24, 1985, Pelton was interviewed by the FBI. Later that night Pelton was arrested just before midnight in room 409 of the Hilton Hotel in Annapolis, MD.

Pelton’s arrest, indictment, and trial

Following Pelton’s late-night arrest, he was placed into custody in the wee-hours of November 25. Pelton was indicted on four counts of espionage on December 20, 1984. His trial began on May 27, 1985, where he pleaded, “not guilty.” The jury deliberation was not lengthy, and on June 5, a jury found him guilty. His sentencing took place on December 6, 1985, where he received three concurrent life sentences. Pelton was released after having just shy of 30-years of his life sentence on November 24, 2015. Pelton is now 80-years old.

Yurchenko, having been spurned by his love interest, a spouse of a Soviet diplomat assigned to the Soviet Embassy in Ottawa, walked away from his CIA handlers in November 1985. He walked himself into the Soviet Embassy and a few days later returned to the Soviet Union amidst much fanfare.

Pelton and Yurchenko are forever entwined in the annals of Cold War espionage.

January 14, 1980, telephone call between Pelton and KGB CI Officer Yurchenko:

Embassy operator: Ah, may I know who is calling?
Pelton: Ah, I would like not to use my name, if it’s all right, for the moment.
Embassy operator: Hold on please. — Sir?
Pelton: Yes, um.
Embassy operator: Hold the line please.
Pelton: All right.
Yurchenko: Hello, sir.
Pelton: Ah, yes . . . . I would.
Yurchenko: Uh, Vladimir Sorokin speaking.
Pelton: I’m sorry.
Yurchenko: Vladimir Sorokin speaking. My name is Vladimir.
Pelton: Vladimir, yes. Ah, I have, ah, I don’t like to talk on the telephone.
Yurchenko: I see.
Pelton: Ah, I have something I would like to discuss with you I think that would be very, interesting to you.
Yurchenko: Uh huh, uh huh.
Pelton: Is there any way to do so in, in, in, ah confidence or in privacy?
Yurchenko: I see, I understand.
Yurchenko: Uh, huh, so, just a moment, hold on unidentified please.
Yurchenko: Sir?
Pelton: Yes.
Yurchenko: Maybe you can, ah, name yourself?
Pelton: Ah . . . uh, on the telephone it would not be wise.
Yurchenko: I see.
Pelton: Uh.
Yurchenko: So, maybe . . . .
Pelton: . . . I come from, I, I, I am in, with the United States government.
Yurchenko: Uh, huh, United States government . . . maybe you can visit.
Pelton: Uh . . . [sigh] okay, wh . . . how would I do that?
Yurchenko: So, do you know the address?
Pelton: Yes, I have been there, I have been by it several times in Washington.
Yurchenko: I see, I see, so you prefer, ah, to speak with somebody in, ah, private?
Pelton: That’s correct.
Yurchenko: Okay.
Pelton: Yeah.
Yurchenko: Uh, huh, okay, just a moment, hold on.
Yurchenko: Sir, I know that you have . . . some problems in this particular question, maybe you could visit, it will be the most convenient way to discuss all the questions.
- - - - Pelton: Ah, okay, any . . . particular time? Is better, is it better?
Yurchenko: [Laughter].
Yurchenko: But the most convenient time, I would, will, approximately in, ah, half an hour, it will be the most.
Pelton: Ah, I will be . . . it will take me a . . . possible that long or a little bit longer to drive.
Yurchenko: Uh, huh. Maybe tomorrow morning?
Pelton: Ah, I will come tomorrow evening.
Yurchenko: Tomorrow evening.
Pelton: . . . so that it will be dark when I come in . . . .
Yurchenko: Okay, okay.
Pelton: . . . As well? Can I give you a name.
Yurchenko: Uh huh.
Pelton: Or (er) can you give me a name to call for? Vladimir?
Yurchenko: So. It doesn’t matter whom I want you to speak. So, anybody will help you. So, ah, ah visit
Pelton: Thank you.
Yurchenko: And that’s all. Okay?
Pelton: I understand, thank you.
Yurchenko: Okay.