Miller’s Motive Not Total Defense, Prosecutors Say

Prosecutors at the trial of the only FBI agent ever charged with spying argued Friday that jurors should not be allowed to consider Richard W. Miller’s motive as a total defense.

“Good motive alone can not be a defense,” U.S. Atty. Robert Bonner declared as attorneys wrestled with final details of jury instructions.

“If good motive were a defense, the Rosenbergs would have said their motives were pure when they gave secrets to the Russians--that they wanted to further world peace,” said Bonner.

Executed in 1953

“The Rosenbergs would walk if that were the case,” added Assistant U.S. Atty. Russell Hayman, referring to Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were executed in 1953 for passing secrets of the atom bomb to the Soviet Union. They maintained their innocence to their deaths.

The legal dispute, preceding next Tuesday’s scheduled final arguments, concerned a series of jury instructions involving Miller’s intent.

Miller, 48, is charged with passing a classified FBI document to his Soviet lover for transmission to the Soviet government. Prosecutors said he was promised $65,000 in cash and gold.

Miller’s lawyers said, however, that he believed that he was carrying out a maverick double-agent operation, trying to infiltrate a Soviet spy network for the good of the United States.

The defense lawyers contend that he can be found guilty only if jurors disbelieve this claim and find that he intended to commit espionage.

U.S. District Judge David Kenyon, who said he would not make a final decision on the instructions until next week, said he thinks jurors must decide if Miller had “a good-faith belief” that the document he is alleged to have passed would have harmed the United States if given to a foreign power.

Defense Argument

The defense contends that Miller never surrendered the document, a guide to FBI counterintelligence reporting, and that the information would have been of no use to a foreign power in any case.

To be found guilty of a conspiracy charge, Kenyon also noted, “the defendant must have knowingly and willfully joined the conspiracy.”