Clyde Lee Conrad
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Clyde Lee Conrad was an American non-commissioned officer who from 1974 and until his arrest on august 23rd 1988 sold top secret classified information to the Hungarian military intelligence service, including top secret NATO war plans. He was convicted of espionage and high treason in a German court in 1990, and was sentenced to life imprisonment.
He died of a heart attack, 50 years old, in Dietz prison on January 7, 1998.
Extent of Conrad's espionage
Among the documents sold by Conrad was the wartime general defense plans (GDP) of many units. These were the plans which contained the precise description of where every unit would go in the case of war, and how they would defend.
Chief Judge Ferdinand Schuth, who presided over the case against Conrad, concluded in the verdict that because of Conrad's treason
- "If war had broken out between NATO and the Warsaw Pact, the West would have faced certain defeat. NATO would have have quickly been forced to choose between capitulation or the use of nuclear weapons on German territory. Conrad's treason had doomed the Federal Republic to become a nuclear battlefield."
References
- Stuart A. Herrington, "Traitors among us", 1999, [link]
External links
- [Defence Security Service article on Clyde Conrad]
- [Stars and Stripes article on the conviction of Clyde Conrad]
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