LAST DAY OF TALKS; BROWN TO APPEAL FOR BROOKE

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31226, 25 November 1966, Page 13

LAST DAY OF TALKS; BROWN TO APPEAL FOR BROOKE

(N .Z.P. A.-Reuter— Copyright) MOSCOW, November 24. The plight of the London lecturer, Gerald Brooke, who was arrested by the Russians in April last year, figures high on the agenda of resumed discussions in Moscow today between the British and Russian Foreign Ministers.

Mr George Brown will end two days of concentrated talks with Mr Andrei Gromyko by switching to bilateral questions. Britain has already made several appeals for clemency for the 29-year-old lecturer, who is serving a five-year sentence

for importing anti-Soviet literature into Russia.

There have also been protests at the Russian refusal to grant him consular access for eight months. Mr Brown also hopes to see

the 3 Russian Prime Minister (Mr Alexei Kosygin). There will be no communique on the talks. He is expected to leave for London this afternoon. Although the main emphasis in today’s talks will be on Anglo-Soviet relations, the two Ministers are expected to return to the nuclear treaty and Vietnam for a final summing-up just before Mr Brown’s departure. Mr Brown, making his first trip to Moscow, tried a new manoeuvre. He did not call for reconvening the 1954 Geneva Conference, of which Britain and

the Soviet Union are co-chair-men.

Mr Brown’s predecessor as Foreign Secretary, Mr Michael Stewart, and the Prime Minister (Mr Wilson) both took this approach and were rebuffed. Informed sources said Mr Brown did not offer any spec-

ific alternative proposal but concentrated on presenting the British conviction that some way toward peace must be found.

The Russian press did not attack Mr Brown but gave brief, factual accounts of his activities. Earlier British visits had prompted Russian press attacks on Britain for pro-Am-ericanism and for support of the United States involvement in Vietnam.