While the U.S. Navy was first to offer its help in bringing up Russia's sunken sub, one of its retired captains is rotting in a Russian jail.
Edmond Pope has been held in Lefortovo Prison for more than four months, accused of spying but not formally charged. His health is deteriorating, and Colorado relatives fear he may suffer the same fate as another American citizen who died in Russian custody for lack of medical attention.
"My brother is not a spy," said Pope's sister, Brenda Linstrom. "We thought he'd be out in four days, not four months. Naturally I'm disappointed in how little our government has done to get him freed."
Pope, 54, of State College, Pa., had a career in naval intelligence and once served as naval attache in Sweden before retiring in 1994. That may have been the red flag that triggered his arrest last April by the Federal Security Bureau, staffed mostly by members of the old KGB.
But Pope had left the Navy six years ago to become a civilian businessman involved in innocent technology exchanges. And the "state secrets" he is accused of stealing involve a 30-year-old torpedo the Russians had been advertising for sale at trade shows around the world.
In his last 10 years at the Pentagon, Pope founded and managed the Navy's Foreign Science and Technologies Program promoting the exchange of scientific information between the United States, Russia and other countries of the former Soviet Union.
After leaving the service he continued dealing with the Russians for Penn State University's Applied Research Lab. And when he left ARL in 1997, he established two private companies — CERF Technologies International and TechSource Marine Group — to commercialize Russian technologies in the West.
This included consulting contracts with ARL to finish projects he had developed while still an employee there. One was to acquire technical reports, testing and hardware for a high-speed underwater vehicle utilizing 30-year-old Russian torpedo technology based on the Shkval, which the Russians are eager to sell abroad.
But on April 3 the FSB arrested Pope and a Penn State engineer. The latter was released after questioning but Pope was jailed.
He has Graves Disease and must be regularly tested for cancer following the removal of a tumor nine years ago. The U.S. Embassy in Moscow reports that he has lost 30 or 40 pounds while in prison and is suffering high fevers, congestion and blurred vision. But State Department requests to have him examined by an embassy doctor have been refused by the Russians.
Pope's wife has been allowed only one 30 minute visit in June, arranged by Rep. John Peterson, R-Pa. She has met personally with President Clinton, asking his help in getting her husband freed, and has appeared on the Today Show and other television programs to put pressure on the State Department.
But State says there is little it can do for Pope because he is a private citizen, without diplomatic immunity, and Washington cannot interfere with Russia's legal process.
Pope's brother-in-law, Steve Linstrom, doesn't buy it. "Surely billions of American aid dollars must count for something," he says.
Congress has also taken up Pope's cause. Resolution 364, introduced by Peterson with 110 co-sponsors in the House of Representatives, calls for a cutoff of all aid and loans to Russia until he is released.
Chances are Pope will be freed.
Even though Russia's Soviet-era legal system is badly in need of an overhaul, the prosecutor's investigation to determine whether Pope should be charged will eventually discover that he cannot be guilty of espionage when the technology he was trying to acquire is being peddled on the open market.
The trouble is that such investigations drag on. Some Russian prisoners have to wait 18 months before being charged or freed. And Linstrom fears that will be too long to save Pope's life.
Meg Wille, whose brother was imprisoned for five months in Georgia last year, has this advice: "Forget the State Department. They're useless. Get a good senator or congressman on your side and raise hell."
Contact Holger Jensen of the Denver Rocky Mountain News at www.denverrmn.com.