Libraries: Spying in The Stacks

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Library Awareness Program sounds like a high-minded effort to get kids to check out Huckleberry Finn. Actually, it is an FBI counterespionage effort. In a 33-page report issued last week, the bureau declared that stacks of the United Nations' Dag Hammarskjold Library, the New York City Public Library and the Library of Congress, among others, are haunted by Soviet agents who snitch sensitive research. Spies also prowl libraries to spot recruits -- such as the Queens College student approached in New York City by Gennadi Zakharov, the Soviet diplomat who was arrested in 1986 and exchanged for Journalist Nicholas Daniloff.

Now it has become spy vs. spy in a battle of the bookshelves. The FBI wants to enlist librarians to inform on Soviet nationals or other suspicious characters who check out technical books. No way, says the American Library Association, which calls the program "an unconscionable and unconstitutional invasion of the rights of library users." FBI Director William Sessions vows to continue his efforts: "We will go wherever our intelligence takes us."