John Stark
El Paso TimesDouble Agent’s
Life, Death a Mystery, You’ll never read that autobiography of a Ft.
Bliss soldier who worked for the U.S. Army as double agent. He died.
They found Ralph Sigler
lying face down on the cheap green shag carpet in a room at the Holiday
Inn in Waterloo, Md. Attached to each arm was a stripped electrical
cord pulled from the motel room lamps. The plug end of the cord has
been inserted in the wall socket attached to the light switch.
Military
investigators and Maryland State Police came to the same conclusion:
suicide by electrocution. But Sigler’s wife said she “never believed it
was suicide. He was murdered.”
Strange as Sigler’s death might seem, it was no stranger than his life. Ralph Sigler,
formerly of El Paso, was a spy. Starting in 1968,
and continuing until the time of his death on April 13, 1976, Sigler
was used by the U.S. Army Intelligence Agency’s Counter-Intelligence
Corps (CIC) as a double agent.
During the course of his career,
Sigler developed a network of contacts in the KGB, the Russian
equivalent of the CIA. Those contacts, apparently operating in such
places as Juarez, Mexico City, Zurich and Vienna, thought Sigler was a
traitor selling them military secrets concerning U.S. radar and missile
systems. Sigler had access to secrets through his regular assignments
as an electronics expert at White Sands Missile Range and Fort Bliss.
In
reality, Sigler was turning over the Russian money to his superiors.
And the “secrets” the Russians were getting already had been cleared
for release by the Army. Some of the “secrets” were fabrications to
mislead the Russians.
Besides feeding the Soviets phony
information. Sigler also aided U.S. Army Intelligence in locating KGB
operatives in this country. After Sigler’s death, Army authorities told
his wife Ilse that her husband’s efforts had led to the identification
of 14 previous unknown KGB operatives here.
Army authorities, as
well as Sigler’s contacts in the FBI, have refused to comment to The
Times on Sigler’s case. The Times learned of Sigler’s strange career
through conversations with his wife. Shortly after her husband’s death,
Mrs. Sigler went to Fort Meade, Md., where she spoke to a colonel
assigned to the U.S. Army Intelligence Agency. The colonel told Mrs.
Sigler about her husband’s life and death. Mrs. Sigler’s account of
Army statements confirmed by attorney Thomas Jennings of Philadelphia
who accompanied her and by documents Mrs. Sigler received from the Army.
Ralph Sigler never intended a career in counterespionage. But that role was determined for him, in a way, at his birth.
Sigler
was born May 24, 1928, in Hertnik, Czechoslovakia. When Ralph was
eight, his father divorced his mother and took Ralph and his
eleven-year-old sister Anne to America. Sigler’s mother stayed in
Czechoslovakia. Years later, when Sigler was an electronics expert in
the Army, his Czechoslovakian birth and his mother’s residence behind
the Iron Curtain would stimulate a computer to select him as a likely
candidate for “double agent” status.
Sigler joined the Army in
1947. In 1955, while stationed in Germany, he met and married Ilse, a
German citizen. After several more years’ service in Germany and a year
in Panama, Sigler was transferred to Ft. Bliss.
The Siglers and
their young daughter Karen were living in a house on Fairfax Street
near Northgate Shopping Center when Sigler first learned about his new
job. Mrs. Sigler remembers that sometime in 1966 two Army intelligence
officers named Carlos Zapata and John Schaafstahl came to the Sigler
home in civilian clothes. They were accompanied by FBI agent Joe Pracek.
The
three men told Mrs. Sigler that Ralph was going to become a “special
courier” for the Army. They got her signature on a document containing
a pledge not to take any action against the Army is anything should
happen to Ralph.
Later, after Ralph was dead, Mrs. Sigler learned
that her husband had been selected for counterespionage work by
computer. His background made him attractive “bait” to the Russians.
Somehow, the Army planned to put Sigler in a position where he would be
approached by Russian agents. The Russians would promise Sigler two
things: money for his own use, and special treatment for his mother in
Russian-controlled Czechoslovakia. Old Mrs. Sigler would get a house, a
special cash allowance, and other things considered luxuries in a
Communist regime.
The Sigler’s life continued uninterrupted for
more than a year after the 1966 meeting. During that time, Mrs. Sigler
believes her husband was on some kind of probationary period before
beginning his counterespionage duties. Then in May 1968, Sigler was
honorably discharged from the regular army at the rank of Sgt. 1C and
was commissioned as a reserve Warrant Officer.
Two months later,
Sigler was transferred to Germany. Mrs. Sigler believes her husband
made his first contact with the Russians while in Europe. The contact
came in Zurich. Mr. and Mrs. Sigler and daughter Karen used a three-day
leave to go there, for what was ostensibly a family outing.
In
fact, Mrs. Sigler and Karen saw little of Ralph during that three-day
period. When the leave was over, and the family headed back to Germany,
Sigler had $3,000 which Mrs. Sigler believed came from the Russians. “I
know it was $3,000, because I carried it in my purse,” Mrs. Sigler said.
Mrs.
Sigler doesn’t know exactly what happened in Zurich, because she and
her husband almost never discussed his espionage work. But she knows
that her husband received “tremendous money” from the Russians during
his year as an agent. She estimates the amount at about $100,000. All
of it was turned over to the Army. “Ralph said civilian agents got to
keep half of what they made,” Mrs. Sigler said.
For the next two
years, while he was stationed in Germany, Mrs. Sigler said her husband
made trips to Zurich every three months. Then he was ordered to
Vietnam. But at the last minute, his contact man in military
intelligence intervened and has his assignment changed to Ft. Bliss. In
October 1970, the Siglers were back in El Paso.
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