Was Paul Whelan, ex-US Marine, really a spy?

My Times story that got subbed down. Here's the full version: RUSSIA's claim it had caught an American/British spy red-handed receiving sensitive information on a flash drive in a hotel in Moscow was derided by western intelligence and diplomatic experts yesterday. If Paul Whelan, ex-Marine, was a spy working for the CIA, he broke one of the golden rules of intelligence-gathering in Russia - never do secret business in a hotel room in Moscow, one espionage expert said. “Every hotel used by westerners in Moscow is wired for video and sound,” Rupert Allason, author of numerous books on intelligence and espionage, said. Both the CIA and Britain’s secret intelligence service (MI6) send the majority of their spies to Russia under diplomatic cover, to provide them with protection under the Geneva Convention. However, there are exceptions. A former senior British diplomat who served in Moscow recalled the role played by the late Greville Wynne, a British businessman who worked for MI6 under the cover of his legitimate professional activities during the Cold War. The CIA’s directorate of operations has a highly secret organisation called the office of external development which runs spies under “non-official cover”. They’re known as “NOCs”. They are paid members of the CIA but work for businesses abroad or as lawyers or in academic institutions or even on occasions as journalists, operating without any obvious link to the US government. Only the chairman of the relevant company or organisation is in the know about these particular employees. However, Mr Allason who has written a book on Russia’s use of “illegals” – Russian spies living and working undercover in normal jobs with false identities – said Paul Whelan could not have been employed by the CIA’s office of external development. “He was court-martialed as a Marine on charges of dishonesty which would have excluded him from ever being accepted by the CIA,” he said. Edward Price, a former CIA officer, also doubted Mr Whelan was a paid-up spy of the United States. “By detaining this American and charging him, the Russians are implicitly making the claim that he is a US intelligence officer working under what’s known as'non-official cover'," he said, adding, "in other words, he’s an operative who doesn’t purport to work for the US government. There are two traits in this individual’s background that make that claim highly implausible: he's a retired Marine. That’s important because the concept of non-official cover is predicated on the idea that NOCs have no known ties to the US government. That’s what allows them to do their job effectively and, if all goes according to plan, without detection." Mr Price went on: "But Paul Whelan served his country in uniform for some 15 years and in a fairly prominent way. He’s even quoted in military publications. That is about as far from the traditional NOC profile as one could get." Mr Price who resigned from the CIA after President Trump took over, said: "Whelan left the Marines with a bad conduct discharge and was court-martialed on various charges. Even if we were to set aside our scepticism on the first count, this fact makes any US government affiliation all the more dubious." "On the other hand, his profile does fit that of someone whom the Russians would detain if they wanted to secure a bargaining chip in the Maria Butina case (the Russian woman jailed for espionage in the US). They surely know that Trump would like nothing more than to boast about securing the release of a veteran. Additionally, I have no doubt they came across his pro-Trump statements on his social media page, something they have to know would reach Trump’s desk, too," he said. Mr Price went on: "We currently have a president who has openly entertained the idea of handing over private US citizens for questioning by Russian officials. That includes Ambassador Michael McFaul (a former US ambassador to Moscow). But Whelan's profile is befitting of someone whom the Russians would deem worthy of Trump making a deal. And the deal in this case may be a swap for Butina." Mr Price said a swap would send "a terrible message - that any private American can be arrested on baseless charges and released only in return for Russian agents, who were acting against our national interest. But, sadly, Trump and Putin’s interests are aligned in this case. Putin obviously wants her back, and the Trump administration would love nothing more than to avoid additional details of her infiltration of the US conservative movement, which could come at her next hearing next month". If not an approved and paid-up spy, could Mr Whelan have been acting as a freelance “agent”, providing intelligence on an ad hoc basis? His background as a court-martialed Marine would not have made him an obvious choice for such a role, Mr Allason said, unless he was perceived to have special access to certain Russian officials or companies. Nothing suggested he had such access, he said. The former senior British diplomat who served in Moscow said his instincts were that the Whelan case was a “tit-for-tat” operation by Russia to gain the release of Maria Butina.