DR SUTCH’S OPINION ‘Russian might have wanted to defect’

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33779, 27 February 1975, Page 18

DR SUTCH’S OPINION ‘Russian might have wanted to defect’

Dr William Bail Sutch, who has just been found not guilty of a breach of the Official Secrets Act. said last evening that a Russian diplomat may have approached him because the Russian wanted to defect.

He said on the television programme “Seven Days." that the first secretary of the 1 Russian Embassy. Mr Dmitri Razgovorov. might have wanted him to act as a go-between. He ceuld not understand how the Security Intelligence Service had known in advance of his meetings With 1 the diplomat unless they obtained the information:, from the Russians. Nor could he understand why Razgov- ( orov had spent an hour and a quarter talking to a security man before he seemingly disappeared. t It had been the Security; Service’s duty to find out if ; he (Dr Sutch) would continue'

to meet Razgovorov, Dr, Sutch said. They might have; got their reason for continuing to follow him in return for a promise of asylum, he suggested. Dr Sutch said he had been “stupid” in his actions, but; said that he had no secret at the time of his meetings with the Russian. He had not thought the; choice of meeting-places i odd, as he himself was used to taking long walks for his health, and had been told that the Russians preferred to talk when walking in the open. His first meeting with Raz-i govorov had been accidental? The Russian had asked to meet him another time to talk about the leaders of; Zionism in New Zealand He had been curious about

the approach because he wondered if a fairly low Russian official would echo the views of what the top Russians were saying—that anti-Zionism was basic to Russian policy—or that it was being used only to improve relations with the Arabs.

He had become uneasy about the meetings because he felt the change of rendezvous was “odd.”

Dr Sutch wondered why no evidence had been given of Razgovorov returning to the Russian Embassy. Perhaps he had wanted to defect, and the Security Service had become involved in it.

If Razgovorov had talked to a security man for an hout and a quarter, he must have told them much more than Dr Sutch was aware of. When his home and office had been searched, he had been told that the searchers were looking for microdots.

photographic equipment, or electronic equipment. The programme quoted the Russian Embassy as saying that Mr Razgovorov is now in Russia, having flown from New Zealand with his wife on October 12.