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István Belovai, Spy Who 'Saved the World' Dies Age 71

http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/281769

Spy Who 'Saved the World' Dies Age 71
By Christopher Szabo.

Former Lieutenant-Colonel István Belovai, who revealed the existence of
a widespread spy-ring within NATO to the US government and reportedly
prevented a Soviet attack on Western Europe, has died aged 71.

The former Army Hungarian People's Army Military Strategic Service
(HPAMSS) officer died in Denver, Colorado, after a long illness,
Hungarian media reported.

The Freerepublic website, quoting an article in the US military's
official magazine, Stars and Stripes, says Belovai sabotaged a Soviet
plan to invade Germany in the 1980s. While handling sensitive
information on NATO deployments, as well as having to hand them over to
the Soviet KGB, Belovai decided the Soviet Union would be able to
destroy NATO forces in Germany, which might lead to a nuclear war.

While stationed in London in the early 1980s, Belovai made contact with
U.S. representatives and informed them of the leak. This led to the
capture one of the largest Cold War NATO spy rings, referred to as the
"Conrad Ring," codenamed Operation Snowdrop by the (HPMSS) for which
Belovai was working.

The Conrad spy ring was based around a U.S. Army Non-Commissioned
Officer, (NCO) Clyde Lee Conrad, who gave documents containing the exact
position of every NATO unit in case of a war, and the details of how
they were to defend against Soviet and Warsaw Pact forces. The material
was classified in the highest possible category, that of Cosmic Top
Secret.

The full extent of the ring is unknown, but Sergeant Roderick James
Ramsay, Staff Sergeant Jeffrey S. Rondeau, Staff Sergeant Jeff E.
Gregory and Kelly Therese Warren were arrested and found guilty of
espionage, along with Conrad. Conrad was arrested in 1988 in Germany,
were the presiding Judge, Ferdinand Schuth stated:

If war had broken out between NATO and the Warsaw Pact, the West would
have faced certain defeat. NATO would have quickly been forced to choose
between capitulation or the use of nuclear weapons on German territory.
Conrad's treason had doomed the Federal Republic to become a nuclear
battlefield.

Sentenced to life in prison, Condrad died in January 1998 of a heart
attack in a German prison, aged 50. All his spying was done for money,
and he reportedly earned at least a million dollars.
Belovai, meanwhile, who received the American codename Scorpion, was
arrested by the communist Hungarian counterintelligence in 1985 while on
vacation in Budapest.

At his trial, the prosecutor demanded the death sentence, but instead,
he was sentenced to life in prison as well as the confiscation of all
his property.

After the Collapse of Communism, Hungary's new president, Árpád Göncz,
grudgingly gave him a partial pardon, by changing his punishment to a
five year suspended sentence. He was only released a year after the
Communist government ceased to function.

He left Hungary the same year after being warned that his life was in
danger and settled in the United States.

Belovai was never satisfied with this state of affairs. He wanted his
military rank back and demanded his actions be seen as serving Hungary,
as well as the West. However, despite his efforts, he remained and
remains merely a pardoned criminal. Belovai told the Stars and Stripes:

The problem is serious because I did nothing against the interest of
Hungary. In that case, I am not a traitor for my country. The CIA did
not recruit me. I did it . I helped the United States to prevent the
next war in Europe. I saved many, many billions of dollars in Europe.
And I believe I helped stop the next atomic war, which would be arranged
by the Soviet Union. Because they wanted to arrange a war. I knew it.

According to a Hungarian military publication, the Hungarian People's
Army was to have invaded Italy through Austria, and hold their positions
until the Soviet Red Army arrived. Belovai feared his countrymen would
have been wiped out.

Now, some 20 years after the ending of Communist rule, no political
party is prepared to "rehabilitate" Belovai. The Hungarian News Agency,
MTI, quoted Hungary's Honorary Consul in Denver, where Belovai lived, as
saying that most American-Hungarians could not understand that modern
Hungary, a member of NATO, hasn't rehabilitated him.

In the battle between the West and the East he served the West and did
something toward the dismantling of the Iron Curtain.

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