Bugs on the Rhine

The U.S. Army command in West Germany, with almost 200,000 troops, is the largest non-German force left in the country. With East and West talking detente, the Army has little to do but keep house. Recently, however, it has been engaged in another activity: spying on civilians.

Although press reports said that such activity started in June, TIME Correspondent Stanley Cloud has learned that Senate investigators have obtained evidence strongly suggesting that intelligence officers launched the spy effort as early as last year. The evidence indicates infiltration of radical, dissident and pro-McGovern groups in West Germany. Both Americans and Germans suspected of being antiArmy were subjected to a wide variety of snooping, including surreptitious photography of members of radical groups, opening of private mail, tapping of telephones belonging to Germans friendly to American radicals, and "monitoring" of the activities of an organization called "Democrats for McGovern," located in West Berlin. The information, gathered by aides of Watergate Committee Member Senator Lowell P. Weicker during an independent investigation of the Nixon Administration's national-security activities, has been turned over to Watergate Committee Chairman Sam Ervin's Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights and to the Senate Armed Services Committee. It is probable that Ervin's subcommittee will look into violations of American citizens' rights abroad.

Immediate Demand. The intelligence program was directed by Major General Harold R. Aaron, deputy chief of staff for intelligence at the U.S. Army's European headquarters in Heidelberg. The Pentagon justified the program on grounds of security, noting that U.S. installations in West Germany were the target of two bomb attacks in May 1972, which killed four soldiers. There have been repeated thefts of machine guns, ammunition and explosives from depots, several cases of arson and numerous attempts to sabotage missile installations. The Army is concerned lest some of its own troops have been involved. There has been continuing militancy among U.S. troops in Germany, particularly among blacks.

Though the Army feels its spying is justified, many Germans are unhappy at such meddling in their affairs. When they learned of the spying two weeks ago, an immediate demand went up for a government investigation. Germans suspected that the spying had taken place without government knowledge, which under German law is illegal. Last week Bonn finally admitted that it had known about U.S. Army spying--but added that the U.S. had asked and received permission for German operatives to carry out wiretapping and surveillance. In other words, it had all been legal.

Questions remain, however. For one thing, Senator Weicker's documents show that, contrary to the Bonn statement, members of the U.S. military--not German agents--engaged in wiretapping against American and German citizens. Another set of documents on the spying operation, according to other press reports, carry the classification "noforn," meaning that no foreign national may see them. One of the documents also contains explicit instructions that German secret-service authorities not be informed of a particular spy mission. Senator Weicker's comment on the murky episode was terse. "Somebody," he said, "has got a helluva lot of explaining to do."

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