Russians return loner who trekked across frozen strait

Press, 18 April 1986, Page 6

Russians return loner who trekked across frozen strait

NZPA-AP Nome, Alaska

An American captured by the Soviets after he hiked across the frozen Bering Strait to a restricted island was on his way home yesterday after interviews with a psychiatric worker and federal agents. John Weymouth, aged 33, of San Francisco, was returned from Big Diomede Island by Soviet helicopter on Wednesday night and handed over to the village public safety officer on Little Diomede Island. Little Diomede and Big Diomede, separated by three nautical miles and the international date line, are the closest points betwen the United States and the Soviet Union. The Soviets forbid Americans to travel to Big Diomede, which is uninhabited except for a military outpost.

Mr Weymouth, carrying a backpack and sleepingbag, walked to Big Diomede on April 3 across the ridged and broken pack ice, despite warnings from villagers

on Little Diomede. The Soviets said he was arrested on April 10 for violating their border.

Mr Weymouth’s hike across the ice capped months of wandering around western Alaska. A State trooper, Captain Joe Detemple, who was in charge of the release, said the quiet loner had been evaluated on Wednesday night by a psychiatric worker in Nome. "Based on that initial evaluation, Weymouth was kept under observation at the Nome jail overnight and will undergo another exam before we fly him out today,” he said. “Troopers said they would fly him to Anchorage, where he was to catch an airline flight to San Francisco. Weymouth’s mother, Estelle Barrett, of San Francisco, paid for the ticket.” “He was reasonably calm, just a little depressed,” Captain Detemple said. “After we talked to him, the F. 8.1. and Army interviewed him by themselves.

“Weymouth said he had oeen confined to a small room on Big Diomede and was interrogated a number of times, but said the Soviets did not treat him like a spy.” He said authorities had no reason to detain Mr Weymouth longer. He had created a minor international incident but broken no United States laws. As he stepped out of the large Soviet helicopter on Wednesday, Mr Weymouth told reporters he

had not wanted to be returned.

“Quite a show,” he said as nearly all of little Diomede’s 154 residents lined up along a steep, snow-covered hillside to watch his release. Mr Weymouth was dubbed “The Wanderer” ■by people he met as he wandered across the mostly roadless tracts of western Alaska. They said the tall, blond man generally kept to himself, working odd-jobs to earn enough money to keep moving on.