REQUESTED TO LEAVE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26748, 17 April 1948, Page 7

REQUESTED TO LEAVE

AMERICAN CORRESPONDENT IN RUSSIA SPY ACTIVITIES ALLEGED Rec. 8 p.m. MOSCOW, Apl. 15. The Soviet Foreign Office has asked Robert Magidoff, the American National Broadcasting Corporation and Exchange Telegraph correspondent in Moscow to leave Russia. Izvestia has published a letter from Cecilia Nelson, a former secretary of Magidoff, in which Nelson said she had involuntarily found among Magidoff’s papers many documents revealing that Magidoff had received United States espionage assignments in Russia. In New York, the National Broadcasting Company in a statement to-day said: “Magidoff has been employed by the N.B.C. as a news reporter since July 21, 1941. His work for us consisted solely of broadcasting reports and sending despatches. The company has full confidence in his integrity as a working newsman, and, needless to say, has never requested him to send any information in violation of censorship, or which might be considered of a military nature.” A State Department spokesman said that Cecilia Nelson, who accused Magidoff, was born in America and has lived in Russia for 12 years. She had worked in the United States Embassy in Moscow as a clerk in 1943-44, The spokesman denied Miss - Nelson’s statement that Magidoff had received communications from the United States through diplomatic pouches, because such facilities were not granted to importers.