Spain Expels 2 Americans, Press Reports

The government has expelled two U.S. diplomats from Spain, reportedly for photographing sensitive communications installations, the Spanish press reported today.

The U.S. Embassy and the Spanish Foreign Ministry both said they had no comment on the report.

The independent Madrid daily, El Pais, said both Americans carried diplomatic passports. It said one, whose name was given only as McMahan, worked at the U.S. Embassy and the other, not identified, was a civilian employee at the U.S.-leased Torrejon Air Base outside Madrid.

The Foreign Ministry’s protocol office said a Dennis E. McMahan took up duties as second secretary at the U.S. Embassy in February, 1984.

A secretary in the embassy’s political section told the Associated Press by telephone that McMahan no longer works in the embassy, having been evacuated to the United States for medical reasons three weeks ago.

Left at Start of Month

El Pais, the conservative daily ABC, the national news agency EFE and the independent news agency Europa Press all indicated that the two men left Spain at the beginning of February.

EFE, citing unidentified Spanish intelligence sources, said the two Americans had been caught photographing “specific parts of a special building” that would have enabled them to determine broadcast frequencies used by the Spanish intelligence services.

The reports came one day after Spanish officials reacted strongly to a report issued Wednesday by the Washington-based Institute for Policy Studies indicating that Spain is among the countries where the U.S. government has contingency plans to store nuclear weapons.

Spanish officials said that they have never been informed of such plans and that Spain declared itself a nuclear-free zone in 1981.