David H. Barnett Spy Case

Counterintelligence - Espionage - Spy Case

Name	BARNETT, David Henry
Employer	CIA
Dates of Employment	Contract employee, 1958-May 1963 Staff employee in Directorate of Operations, March 1963-1970 January 1979: hired by CIA as contract employee to teach CIA officers how to resist interrogations
Employee Type	Was a Contract employee, then Staff employee, then contractor employee
Job Title/Duties	Case Officer in the Directorate of Operations Served two tours in Indonesia. Left CIA in 1970 to start his own businesses in Indonesia-- P.T.Trifoods, a shrimp processing company, and a furniture export business. By 1976, they had failed and Barnett was deeply in debt. 1977: Returned to US.
Military Rank
Clearance Level	TS/SCI

Spying For	Soviet KGB KGB officer Dmitri in Indonesia; KGB officer Vladimir V. POPOV in the US
Codename
Spying Dates	October 1976 to 1980
Co-conspirators	None
Methodology	Contacted Soviet cultural attachee in Djakarta in October 1976. Volunteered CIA information for $70,000 to get out of debt. Told to go to Vienna, Austria in February 1977 to be debriefed by the KGB. Flew to Brussels, took a train to Antwerp for a business meeting, took another train back to Brussels, then a third train to Vienna. Went back the same way. KGB told him to try to get a job with the Senate Intelligence Committee, the House Intelligence Committee or the administration's Intelligence Oversight Board. Also said to get hired by the CIA, DIA or the Intelligence and Research Bureau at the State Department. Barnett was fearful of trying to get a job at an Agency that required a polygraph test. Kept up with developments at CIA through his contacts in the Agency. Used a public pay phone in the Bethesda Medical Building to talk with his KGB handler on the last Saturday of every month. Put money he received from the KGB in a separate bank account so his wife wouldn't find out.
Possible Motivations, Problems	Resigned from CIA because of a personality conflict with Chief of Station. His businesses were failing and he was in debt of $100,000. He borrowed more than $100,000 from the shrimp factory to support his furniture business. Both businesses went bankrupt. His wife had a blood clot of the brain. Back in the US, he was still in debt and drinking heavily. Became more detached from his family. Rented a house in Bethesda, MD.
Finances	Deeply in debt Received about $92,600 from the Soviets
Identified/ Investigation	GTJOGGER, KGB Lt. Col. Vladimir M. Piguzov, a CIA source in Indonesia. Piguzov was later executed by the KGB after being betrayed by CIA officer Aldrich Ames.
Arrest Date/Location	8 March 1980
Charges	Sold information about a successful covert CIA operation called HABRINK which collected information on Soviet weaponry that the Soviets gave to Indonesia from 1959 to 1969. He told the KGB that the US was able to then develop countermeasures against the Russian-built SA2 antiaircraft missile used by the North Vietnamese against US bombers during the Vietname War. Barnett gave the Soviets the names of the Indonesia agent and 29 others who arranged for the resale of Soviet equipment to the CIA. Barnet also gave up the names of CIA officers and names of KGB officers that the CIA was targeting for recruitment.
Court	US District Court of the District of Maryland
Lawyers
Status	29 October 1980: pled guilty 8 January 1981: sentenced to 18 years in prison Paroled in 1990

Date/Place of Birth	1933 in Pennsylvania. Grew up in Robinson Township outside of Pittsburgh, PA
Citizenship	US
Residences	Bethesda, MD
Education	BA degree from University of Michigan in 1955
Family	Wife Sarah whom he met right before being posted to Indonesia. She worked on Capitol Hill and they were married before he left the US. Three children. Father killed in a fire that burned down Barnett's childhood home. Three days after finding out her husband was spying for the Soviets, Barnett's wife had a stroke.
Other Employment	Served in US Army for three years as an intelligence analyst in South Korea and Washington, DC
Additional Bio

Documents	United States v. David Henry Barnett Statement of Facts
Quotes	"Dave Barnett is the least analytical man I know. I've never met a man as detached as he is from the things that go on around him."--Neighbor in 1980
Case Links
BOOKS

News:

Living on Burrowed Time

Was onetime CIA Agent David Barnett a KGB mole? The news did nothing to improve the already tarnished reputation of the Central Intelligence Agency. In Baltimore last week, a grand jury indicted David Barnett, 47, a former CIA covert agent, on a single count of selling top-secret information to the agency's Soviet counterpart, the KGB. Barnett allegedly fed the Soviets details about a CIA operation code-named HABRINK, set up to collect data on Soviet weaponry systems. Barnett, who was said to be living with his family in Bethesda, Md., was expected to plead guilty this week. Though he faces a maximum sentence of life imprisonment, he may receive a lighter penalty for confessing. It is the first public case of a CIA official giving secrets to the KGB.....(Time, 3 Nov 1980)

FORMER C.I.A. AGENT WHOP SPIED FOR SOVIET SENTENCED TO 18 YEARS

David H. Barnett, who last year confessed selling sensitive American intelligence information to the Soviet Union while employed by the Central Intelligence Agency, was sentenced today by a Federal district judge here to serve 18 years in prison. Mr. Barnett, 47 years old, faced a maximum sentence of life imprisonment for violating Federal espionage laws. Under the sentence imposed today, he will be eligible for parole in 1987.....(New York Times, 9 Jan 1981)