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The
room where Craig J. Spence died was awash in the small
mysteries and ironies that had followed him - and that
he had perpetuated - since he came to Washington in the
late 1970s, already an enigmatic figure with strange
Asian connections and friends in high places.
The
sergeant, who also participated in the July 3
White House tour, allegedly was asked by Mr.
Spence for information on Delta Force, a special
forces counterterrorism unit based in Fort
Bragg, N.C.
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On the bed was a
newspaper clipping referring to CIA undercover agents.
Scrawled on the mirror was a note written to some
unnamed "chief," which also contained an
obscure phrase in Japanese, "Nisei Bei," which
means second-generation American.
But hidden from view, in the room's false ceiling,
were personal papers, including a birth certificate
describing his arrival as a small-town, middle-class boy
- a heritage he spent his life trying to restyle.
"Death, you know, is only painful to the ones
you leave behind," Mr. Spence told The Washington
Times during an interview in August. "As a matter
of fact, I'm looking forward to it. At 48, I'll still
look good in hell."
The focus of a summer sex scandal, Mr.
Spence was found dead Friday in his room at the Ritz
Carlton Hotel in Boston. He had celebrated
his 49th birthday just three weeks ago at a lavish
Washington party.
The Ritz was among Mr. Spence's favorite hostelries,
one of several posh accommodations he demanded in his
frequent travels throughout the United States, Europe,
South and Central America and the Orient.
"I've always been a first-class person in a
second-class world, but I've learned to adjust," he
said in the interview. "But there are places I've
found where a civilized man can exist with some style
and dignity."
Mr. Spence's name surfaced this summer after The
Times identified the former lobbyist and prominent
social host - who could arrange unauthorized late-night
tours of the White House for his friends with a single
telephone call - as a major client of a homosexual
prostitution service being investigated by the Secret
Service, Metropolitan Police, the U.S. Attorney's Office
and a federal grand jury.
That
investigation centered on a homosexual call-boy service
that operated out of a house on 34th Place NW. The
ring's clients, according to hundreds of credit-card
vouchers obtained by The Times, included government
officials, military officers, foreign and U.S.
businessmen, lawyers, bankers, congressional aides,
media representatives and other professionals.
The vouchers showed that Mr. Spence spent as much as
$20,000 a month for call boys from various escort
services run by the ring, including Man-to-Man, Dream
Boys, Ultimate First Class and Jovan. He admitted in the
interview with The Times that he had used credit cards
to purchase sexual services, but strongly
hinted of having "firsthand information" about
people "high in government" who also were
involved.
During the past
few weeks, Mr. Spence told several friends that he knew
"for a fact" that the call-boy operation was
being investigated by the U.S. Attorney's Office and
other federal authorities as a CIA front. He told the
friends the CIA used the service to compromise other
federal intelligence officials and foreign diplomats.
Mr. Spence
claimed in the interview that he had worked for the CIA
on numerous occasions and had been instrumental in a
number of covert actions in Vietnam, Japan, Central
America and the Middle East - a claim denied by the
agency.
"How do you
think a little faggot like me moved in the circles I
did?" he said. "It's because I had contacts at
the highest levels of this government.
"They'll
deny it. But how do they make me go away, when so many
of them have been at my house, at my parties and at my
side?"
The grand jury investigation begun in June by U.S.
Attorney Jay Stephens was described as a "credit
card" probe. It is not clear, however, how vigorous
federal prosecutors have been nor where the case may be
headed.
The Times, in
contacting a number of principal witnesses and active
participants in the case, discovered that few of them
had been interviewed and only a handful asked to testify
before the grand jury. Several key figures had not been
contacted at all. Those who were questioned were being
asked mainly about national security concerns and
possible security breaches at the White House.
Among those not
contacted by law enforcement officials or the grand jury
were:
* Officials of
the Reagan and Bush administrations who were identified
in The Times as having used the call-boy service and
paid with credit cards.
* Those running
the prostitution ring raided in February, and
persons who kept the credit-card records of visits with
prostitutes by people who worked in the Reagan and Bush
White Houses.
* Any of several
high-profile friends of Mr. Spence's who attended
parties at his Kalorama home or spoke for pay
at numerous seminars he sponsored as a registered
foreign agent.
* Prostitutes
who said they serviced Mr. Spence and military personnel
whom the former lobbyist hired as bodyguards.
"I haven't
heard one word from the U.S. attorney, the FBI or anyone
else," said one of the men whom Mr. Spence got into
the White House for a 1 a.m. visit on July 3, 1988.
"The Secret Service talked to me back in the
summer, after the stories were out, but nothing since
then."
Mr. Spence was
one key figure who was handed a subpoena more than two
months ago but had yet to testify. What arrangements had
been made with the former lobbyist are not known. Mr.
Spence vowed during the August interview, however, that
he would "never be brought back alive before any
damned hearing."
Mr. Stephens has declined to comment on the case.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Alan Strasser, who is handling
the matter before the grand jury, also has refused
comment. A spokeswoman, Judy Smith, said yesterday that
the U.S. Attorney's Office would have no comment on Mr.
Spence's death or its potential impact on the
investigation.
| A participant
in one of the late-night White House tours testified
before the grand jury two weeks ago and was asked about
the tours, missing china out of the presidential mansion
and Mr. Spence's
interest in the U.S. military's top-secret Delta Force.
The witness, a longtime acquaintance of Mr. Spence's who
had spent considerable time as a guest in his home, was
not asked any questions about credit cards, Mr. Spence's
alleged involvement with the homosexual call-boy ring or
about the ring itself.
The witness - who was among those taking the July 3
White House tour - also described a lengthy interview
with Mr. Strasser, Secret Service agents and then a
brief questioning period before the federal panel.
"They pulled out a picture book containing the
White House china collection and asked me about the
Truman china," said the witness, who asked not to
be identified. "They wanted to know if I had seen
anything like that. They strongly intimated that more
things were missing."
Mr. Strasser, according to the witness, also asked
during the private discussion and before the grand jury
about the gift by Mr. Spence of an expensive Rolex watch
to a U.S. Army sergeant. The
sergeant, who also participated in the July 3 White
House tour, allegedly was asked by Mr. Spence for
information on Delta Force, a special forces
counterterrorism unit based in Fort Bragg, N.C.
"They asked
me what I thought Spence wanted to know about the Delta
project," the witness said. "I said it could
mean he was just interested in the young guys there or
something else."
The questioning by federal authorities became most
detailed when it turned to the subject of the late-night
tours. "They
asked if we went in any offices, if I had seen any
documents or if any documents had left the White
House," the witness said.
Secret Service officials have publicly stated there
was no breach of security during the tours and that they
had no concern that entry was made by the late-night
visitors into unauthorized areas of the White House.
Mr. Spence also gave an $8,000 Rolex watch to Secret
Service uniformed officer Reginald A. deGueldre, who was
assigned to the White House security detail. Mr.
deGueldre has admitted in an affidavit that he gave Mr.
Spence a piece of Truman china from the White House
collection.
In August, Mr. deGueldre and another Secret Service
officer, who has not been identified, were suspended
indefinitely without pay and a third was placed on
administrative leave with pay. Secret Service officials
said at the time that the suspensions were the first
step to possible criminal prosecution of the two men,
although none has yet taken place.
Mr. deGueldre said recently he had not been
approached by any federal authorities for an interview
or asked to testify before the grand jury. "I have
no idea what is going on," he said. "I have
not heard from anyone at all."
The grand jury witness said federal authorities also
inquired about Mr. Spence's alleged drug use. In his
interview with The Times, Mr. Spence admitted to being a
heavy cocaine user. He was arrested for possession of
cocaine in New York last summer.
The witness also
was shown a collection of photographs of male youths
between "14 and 17 or 18 years old" and asked
if any were a youth Mr. Spence lived with and introduced
as his son. "They were a rough bunch of
customers," the witness said. "The photographs
looked like things that might have been found in the
house they raided. I was asked if Craig had a son, and I
said I didn't believe he did."
In the August interview, Mr. Spence admitted to using
the 34th Place call-boy service, but said the amounts of
the charges had been inflated by someone connected with
the operation. As a result, he said, he fired his
accountant over charges he said he had not authorized.
The accountant, Peter Chase, denied he had been fired
and said all the credit-card charges had been verified
and each contained Mr. Spence's signature. He
steadfastly has declined to comment specifically about
his former client, but did confirm that records
involving Mr. Spence had been subpoenaed by the Secret
Service, that no one from the U.S. Attorney's Office had
talked with him and that he was not scheduled to appear
before the grand jury.
Mr. Spence, who said in August that he had AIDS and
who threatened to commit suicide rather than die of the
disease, was scheduled for a hearing Feb. 2 in New York
City on weapons and drug charges. He was arrested July
31 at the Barbizon Hotel on East 63rd Street with a
22-year-old Brooklyn man identified by police as Casey
Regan, an alleged male prostitute. Two other hearings,
one in September and the other last week, had been
postponed.
Police seized a loaded .32-caliber pistol and
confiscated a small quantity of a white powder believed
to be cocaine after a report of a disturbance at the
hotel.
During his days as one of Washington's premier hosts,
Mr. Spence dressed in finery and lived extravagantly,
affecting touches like scarlet-lined capes and stretch
limousines.
Among those who
attended his parties and were featured at seminars he
sponsored were journalists Eric Sevareid, Ted Koppel,
William Safire and Liz Trotta; former Ambassadors Robert
Neumann, Elliott Richardson and James Lilly; the late
John Mitchell, attorney general in the Nixon
administration; Mr. Casey and other CIA officials,
including Ray Cline, former deputy director of
intelligence for the agency; former Lt. Gen. Daniel O.
Graham, an expert on the Strategic Defense Initiative
who now heads High Frontier Inc.; Sen. John Glenn, Ohio
Democrat, and Sen. Frank Murkowski, Alaska Republican;
and Joseph diGenova, former U.S. attorney in Washington,
and his wife, Victoria Toensing, a former deputy
assistant attorney general.
Arnaud de Borchgrave, editor-in-chief of The Times,
attended a party for Mr. Lilly hosted by Mr. Spence at
the former lobbyist's Kalorama home.
Following the August interview in New York, Mr.
Spence returned to Washington and reportedly stayed with
friends. He maintained a high profile on the bar and
restaurant circuit, and was spotted at several places
during the past two months.
Meanwhile, several members of Congress, federal
officials, military officers and others have told The
Times that they are concerned that the lavish parties
and Japanese-sponsored seminars thrown by Mr. Spence, at
which the elite of Washington and officials from Japan,
China and elsewhere mingled, might have compromised U.S.
security.
Rep. Helen Delich Bentley, Maryland Republican, for
one, recently questioned the former lobbyist's ties to
the Japanese government in a speech on the floor of the
House. Citing news articles in the United States and
Japan, Mrs. Bentley asked whether plans for the F-16 jet
had been transferred by Mr. Spence to a Japanese
government official, Motoo Shiina, and later turned over
to the Soviet Union.
"I bring this to the floor today, Mr. Speaker,
because I am frankly puzzled that these stories are out
- in print both in Japan and in America -and there
seems to be no official investigation into what to me
are very grave charges," she said.
Photo, Craig Spence
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