Getting "Snookered"

Contrary to popular belief, the site of the new U.S. embassy in Moscow is not a swamp. But that is one of the few favorable comments the State Department can make about the controversial facility. According to a department report written last year, the swamp legend resulted from "some drainage problems during excavation" of the site. Still, the new chancery is 30 ft. lower than the old one, and evidence of eavesdropping devices has been found in its walls and structural columns.

By most accounts, the project has been jinxed from the time the U.S. and the Soviet Union began discussing a joint agreement to construct new embassies 24 years ago. Throughout the decades of haggling over the plan, the U.S. consistently got the short end of the deal. Says Lawrence Eagleburger, an assistant to the Secretary of State under Richard Nixon: "Every Administration since Johnson got snookered on this."

First came the squabbling over reciprocal sites. The Soviets initially balked when the U.S. offered a location on Washington's Mount Alto, ! complaining it was too far from the center of town. The U.S. had a similar gripe about the Soviets' suggested American embassy site high atop the Lenin Hills. By the end of the decade, however, the Soviets had accepted Mount Alto; the high ground may have been far from the action, but it did offer an ideal location for eavesdropping equipment. Meanwhile, the U.S. agreed to build in that soggy spot near the Moscow River, primarily because it was close to the old embassy and only a mile from the Kremlin. "It's a classic case of one part of the Government not talking to the other," says former CIA Deputy Director Bobby Inman. "In the intelligence community, we certainly were aware of the terrific advantage of the Mount Alto location. But the State Department wouldn't listen."

Then commenced the extended bargaining over construction. By 1972 a compromise had taken shape. The interior decoration and finishing of each compound would be overseen by the country's own teams, but the major construction would be the responsibility of the host country. The intelligence community balked at allowing the Soviets to build the embassy's walls. But President Nixon, who was pursuing a policy of detente with Moscow, instructed the State Department to cut the deal.

Bickering continued over construction details until a final protocol was signed in 1977. Jimmy Carter's CIA director, Stansfield Turner, wanted the Moscow embassy to be built only by U.S. citizens who would be subject to lie- detector tests upon their return home. Carter approved the idea, says Turner, but the departments of State and Defense blocked the plan. "I gave them money out of the CIA budget for security checks and polygraphs," says he, "and they never properly used it." Turner believes the U.S. has a "cultural problem" with Soviet espionage. "Americans just can't get it through their heads that the Soviets will do anything to spy on us," he contends. "Few people in Washington are prepared to pay the price for security."