Ex-cryptographer accused of giving Soviets secrets

Joseph George Helmich, a former Army cryptographer, was arrested by federal agents Wednesday on charges of spying for the Soviet Union. The four-count indictment charged that Mr. Hlemich provided classified, secret and top secret information vital to the national defense to Soviet agents from January 1963 to August 1980. It said the first exchange of information in 1963 occurred while Helmich was in Paris and involved sensitive information about the US cryptographic syste m known as KL-7.