U.S. Embassy Officers Accused Of Espionage

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30413, 11 April 1964, Page 19

U.S. Embassy Officers Accused Of Espionage

(N Z. Press Association—Copyright;

MOSCOW, April 10.

Russia has accused four members of the United States Embassy in Moscow of espionage and has told them they may not travel outside Moscow for 90 days, a United States Embassy spokesman said today.

The Embassy said it had lodged protests with the Soviet Government, and had denied the officials were engaged in any improper activity or espionage.

The British Embassy declined to comment on a report that a similar 90-day restriction has been ordered by Russia for a British attache, Air Commodore A N. Davis. Answering questions over the telephone, an American Embassy spokesman said the travel bans arose from two incidents earlier this year, one in Leningrad and one in Tula,

south of Moscow. He named the four officers as Commander Stuart Savage and Lieutenant Leonard Bracken, jun., of the Navy and Lieu-tenant-Colonel Edgar Smith and Captain Edmund Zvetina of the Air Force.

The spokesman said the restrictions had been imposed last month. The two naval officers had been surrounded by a crowd of irate citizens in Leningrad on February 14.

After 20 minutes the militia had arrived and cleared the crowd. The Embassy had protested on February 15 and March 10, denying misconduct by the officers and demanding that they receive normal diplomatic treatment. The two Air Force officers had been stopped by an irate citizen in a park in Tula on March 17, and surrounded by a crowd for some 40 minutes before soldiers arrived and told them they must leave the park as it was military property, the spokesman said. The embassy had pretested to the Soviet authorities on March 20.

The American spokesman said the park in Tula was next to a military airfield, but was not itself military property. The Embassy had denied that

the two officers committed any misconduct.

Commander Savage is assistant naval attache at the Embassy and Lieutenant-Colonel Smith is assistant air attache.