United States v. Dedeyan

United States v. Dedeyan

Opinion

 [*37]  After trial to a jury, the defendant-appellant was found guilty of failing to report the abstraction of a document relating to the national defense, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 793(f)(2). ¹ He was thereafter sentenced  [*38]  to the custody of the Attorney General of the United States for a term of three years. He has appealed alleging numerous errors. We affirm.

 [**2]  In September, 1972, the defendant, a civilian mathematician, working on certain United States Department of Defense contracts in private industry, was assigned by his supervisor at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory to conduct a Navy study. ² An Air Force study previously made had recommended that airlift be given a greater role in sending American soldiers and supplies to Western Europe, but had not adequately considered the possibility of a Russian attack upon the airlift. The study to be made by the defendant was a re-examination of American plans to defend NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) from a Russian and Warsaw Pact attack upon Western Europe in 1976.

The defendant worked on the project from late September, 1972, through Friday, March 30, 1973. On that date he assigned the study a preliminary "secret" classification and submitted copies to the project officer for the Chief [**3]  of Naval Operations, who testified that he approved the classification "since it contained information that was secret." ³ [**4]  The defendant took a copy of the study home with him in order to proof-read it. ⁴ On that same date, Friday, March 30th, a second cousin from New York arrived to visit defendant. ⁵ Defendant says he showed his cousin the cover of the Vulnerability Analysis and then replaced it in his brief case. On the next day while the defendant and his wife were out of the house, his cousin photographed the first seventy pages of the Vulnerability Analysis, using a miniature camera which had been supplied to him by a Soviet representative to the United States.

According to the defendant some eight months later his cousin told him that he had photographed part of the Vulnerability Analysis and gave the defendant $ 1,000, which the defendant said he understood was intended to be payment for his remaining silent.

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