Former Cia Agent Strikes Plea Bargain

Harold J. Nicholson, the highest-ranking CIA officer ever charged with espionage, on Monday pleaded guilty to selling secrets to Moscow.

Striking a plea agreement under which he might someday be a free man again, Nicholson, who is 46, admitted that he had been a Russian spy since June 1994, when he was the CIA’s deputy station chief in Malaysia.

His confession came in a terse hearing at the U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va. He said little more than “I plead guilty, Your Honor.”

Nicholson confessed Monday to selling Moscow the names and the overseas assignments of the new CIA officers he had trained.