A former Navy intelligence analyst, Robert C. Kim, accused of spying for South Korea, pleaded guilty Wednesday to a reduced charge of conspiracy to commit espionage.
Kim, 57, is a South Korean native who became a U.S. citizen in 1974 and had worked as a computer specialist for the Navy since 1978. As a civilian employee with the Office of Naval Intelligence, Kim had access to classified information in a computer system shared by the Navy and the Coast Guard.He admitted that he had slipped secret Pentagon and State Department documents to a naval attache, Baek Dong Il, at the South Korean Embassy in Washington. The documents included classified reports on North Korea, South Korea and China, and descriptions of a computerized tracking system for ships. The attache was recalled to South Korea soon after Kim was arrested.