‘Perfect spy' betrayed US for 25 years
A retired United States Army Reserve officer was today convicted of smuggling military documents to the former Soviet Union over 25 years, becoming one of the Cold War’s most prolific master spies.
The jury in Tampa, Florida, deliberated for just two hours before finding George Trofimoff, 74, guilty of a single federal espionage charge.
Described as ‘‘the perfect spy’’, he faces life in prison.
Trofimoff, a retired colonel, is the highest-ranking US military officer to be arrested on spy charges.
He was arrested a year ago trying to collect money he thought was coming from the Russians.
Trofimoff insisted that he never was a spy, but was forced to pretend to be one because of money problems. Some jurors laughed at his testimony on Monday.
He served as chief of the Army interrogation centre in Nuremberg, Germany, from 1968 until 1994, when he was arrested by German authorities for spying.
Charges were dropped when authorities could not prove spying occurred before the five-year statute of limitations expired.
The centre regularly housed volumes of secret briefing documents that detailed what the United States knew and did not know about its Soviet adversaries and other Warsaw Pact nations.
Among information Trofimoff passed to the Soviets were details of what the United States knew about their military preparedness, which exposed potential American sources and gave the Soviets an opportunity to change how they prepared for war.
A former KGB general has described Trofimoff as one of the Soviet Union’s top spies during the 1970s.
‘‘George Trofimoff wasn’t an accidental spy. He wasn’t casual and he wasn’t a sloppy spy,’’ Assistant US Attorney Laura Ingersoll told jurors on Monday.
‘‘In a very real sense he was the perfect spy.’’
Prosecutors said Trofimoff was recruited as a spy by Igor Susemihl, a high-ranking priest for the Moscow-controlled branch of the Russian Orthodox church. Susemihl also was arrested and freed in 1994. He died five years later.
Trofimoff, who married five times, concealed his activities for 25 years from US authorities and his wives. He controlled access to the documents and carefully copied them at night in his basement.
Trofimoff’s defence lawyer said he was a patriot who desperately needed money and who made up a rich tale of spying to collect cash from a man he thought was a Russian official.
Trofimoff testified that it was a ‘‘coincidence’’ that in his meeting with an undercover FBI agent he was able to provide the correct first names of several KGB agents whose pictures were shown.
‘‘If he had asked me ‘Did you give us the Brooklyn Bridge?’ I would have told him ‘yes’,’’ Trofimoff said.
Trofimoff, who lived in an exclusive development for former soldiers, was working as a grocery store bagger when he was indicted.
