Conrad, Clyde Lee

(1944–1998)

   Conrad was recruited and run by the Hungarian military intelligence service (MNVK/2) for their Soviet allies for more than a decade. As an active duty and recently retired army senior sergeant, Conrad had access to highly classified information about NATO and American war plans. He also was able to recruit a number of other American noncommissioned officers. Conrad and other members of his ring were paid over $1.5 million for division, corps, and army-level operational plans. The first lead to Conrad’s ring came from Vladimir Vasilev, a GRU officer serving in Budapest. Vasilev informed his Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) case officer of the danger of the spy ring, noting with little exaggeration that it was the biggest Soviet military intelligence case in the Cold War. Conrad became the target of a joint CIA and military intelligence investigation that led to the arrest of 11 men and women working for MNVK/2 in Germany, Sweden, and Austria. Conrad was tried for espionage in a German court; the post-Soviet Hungarian government provided some evidence for the prosecution. He was sentenced to life imprisonment and died in a German prison in 1998. Because Conrad was not convicted by an American court, he continued to receive his military pension until he died in jail.