Ghosts Of Cold War Follow Spy From Jail The World Has Changed During Marine’s Sentence For Aiding Soviets

Nearly nine years after becoming the first and only Marine convicted of espionage, former Sgt. Clayton Lonetree will walk out of prison this week and into a new world.

The Cold War is over - his affair with a Soviet translator a lifetime away. But putting the past behind him could prove impossible for Lonetree. His spying for the Soviets not only sent shudders through a Red-wary United States in the 1980s, it became his legacy.

“He’ll never be a free man,” said Rod Barker, author of “Dancing with the Devil” a new book about the Lonetree case. “Legally he will have served his time, he will have paid his debt … but he’ll always have to live with the legacy of being the first Marine, the only Marine, to ever have been convicted of espionage.”

Lonetree’s story reads like a spy novel.

Stationed at the U.S. embassy in Moscow in the early 1980s, the handsome young Marine from St. Paul, Minn., met and fell in love with Violetta Seina, a Soviet translator. She introduced him to a Soviet agent, known only to him as Uncle Sasha.

At his 1987 court martial, Lonetree confessed to supplying blueprints of the embassy building and names of U.S. intelligence agents to Uncle Sasha. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison.

Since then, the sentence has been pared down three times to 15 years. Under military rules, additional credit for time served made Lonetree eligible for early release this Tuesday, Barker said.

For a time, Lonetree, now 35, and his attorneys felt there was a good chance he would be executed for his crimes.

“They wanted to kill him. We had individual Marines volunteering to be on the firing squad. We know the jury thought they were being lenient when they gave him a 30-year sentence,” said Michael Stuhff, the attorney who represented Lonetree along with the late William Kunstler at his court-martial.

Lonetree’s case unleashed concern over security at American embassies worldwide and led to a secret presidential study that criticized the State Department and the Marines for neglecting security.

However, Lonetree has claimed that he was duped into confessing to espionage. His lawyers and family members also have contended that that the U.S. government overreacted and that he gave nothing of value to the Soviets.

Lonetree’s father, Spencer Lonetree, says he’ll be there when his son is released.

“I still feel a lot of bitterness,” Lonetree said from his home on the Ho-Chunk Nation Winnebago Reservation in Wisconsin. “My son is a lot more forgiving than I. He’ll get on with his life, but I’m not as forgiving.”