Soviets Insist U.S. Is at Fault in Major’s Death

The death of a U.S. Army major in East Germany at the hands of a Soviet sentry was “tragic” and “regrettable,” but the United States must take full responsibility for it because the officer had violated a 1947 Soviet-U.S. agreement, the official Tass news agency said Tuesday.

Tass added that the United States was circulating a deliberately false version of the fatal shooting of U.S. Army Maj. Arthur D. Nicholson Jr. by a Soviet guard near the town of Ludwigslust in the Schwerin district of East Germany on Sunday.

It said that Nicholson was dressed in “camouflage gear” when he intruded onto a Soviet military base Sunday, opened the window of a military storage facility and took photographs.

“The Soviet side has repeatedly drawn the attention of official United States representatives to the provocative and dangerous nature of such actions,” the Tass account said.

‘Deliberately False’

“The tragic outcome of what happened on March 24 is regrettable, but the entire responsibility for it lies fully on the American side, which is now circulating a deliberately false version of what happened,” Tass said.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Bernard Kalb denounced the Tass report of the killing and said the U.S. government stands by the assessment by Assistant Secretary of State Richard R. Burt, who Monday accused the Soviets of murder.

“Our reaction is one of disgust that the Soviets would compound the inexcusable killing of Maj. Nicholson with such an obviously tendentious account of the events,” Kalb said.

He brushed aside questions about retaliation but said, “Obviously this tragic event will not improve U.S.-Soviet relations.”

In Luxembourg at a meeting of North Atlantic Treaty Organization defense ministers, Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger also denounced the Soviet shooting. Pentagon spokesman Michael I. Burch said Weinberger compared the incident to the shooting down of a Korean Air Lines jumbo jet that strayed into Soviet airspace in September, 1983. That incident took 269 lives.

Weinberger “called it an example of a KAL mentality on the part of the Soviets where they shoot first and ask questions later,” Burch said.

Soviet Officers Returned

Burch also noted that three Soviet military officers caught in more compromising circumstances last week in West Germany were simply returned to their mission. The three officers were trying to photograph a West German defense installation in a restricted area near the Bavarian town of Hof on March 20, Burch said, when they were apprehended by the U.S. Army’s 1st division.

Tass charged that the United States was guilty of a flagrant violation of a 1947 agreement, which allows U.S. military missions to be based in East Germany and their Soviet counterparts to be stationed in West Germany. In effect, Western officials say, both sides are “licensed to spy” on troop movements and other military matters.

The Tass statement, however, said the agreement specifically forbids military liaison officers to enter places where troops are stationed.

Nicholson, 37, a Russian linguist, was assigned to the U.S. military mission at Potsdam, about 70 miles from Ludwigslust. U.S. officials said Monday in Washington that he was 300 to 500 yards away from the Soviet base when he was shot.

The Tass account, however, said the major was on the territory of a Soviet military installation and had approached a storage building, opened a window and taken pictures.

“Acting in strict compliance with military regulations, the (Soviet) sentry demanded in Russian and German that the stranger stop,” Tass said.

Warning Shot Mentioned

“When the latter failed to comply and tried to flee, the sentry fired a warning shot into the air,” Tass said. “Since the intruder did not stop even after this, the sentry had to use his weapon. He fired and killed the intruder.”

Tass said Nicholson and Army Staff Sgt. Jessie G. Schatz drove onto the Soviet base “despite the existence of clearly visible warning signs in Russian and German.” Schatz was later apprehended by Soviet soldiers, Tass added.

“American servicemen have committed such unlawful actions before,” Tass charged. “Thus, when an attempt was made in August, 1982, to apprehend staff members of the U.S. mission who were engaged in military reconaissance in a restricted zone in the area of the Rorbek settlement, Potsdam district, they deliberately ran down a Soviet army officer, inflicting grievous bodily harm to him.”

Meanwhile, Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) said the incident has strengthened his intention to push for legislation to restrict the number of Soviets with diplomatic immunity in the United States to the number of Americans with such immunity in the Soviet Union.

‘Very Sensitive Matters’

Leahy, a member of the Senate Intelligence and Judiciary committees, said, “The Soviets are just flooding people in here.” He urged Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III, who appeared before the Judiciary Committee, to support his bill. But Meese said the proposal raises “complex and very sensitive matters” and that it would be “improper” for him to state his position before conferring with Secretary of State George P. Shultz.

Leahy, whose previous efforts to obtain enactment of such a “reciprocity” law resulted only in the adoption of a resolution, said the law would be “the sort of thing the Soviets understand.”

He added, “The Soviet Union has many, many times the people in this country with diplomatic immunity” than there are Americans with such protection inside the Soviet Union, “not even counting the massive contingent of KGB (Soviet state security and intelligence personnel) at the United Nations.”

Times reporter Norman Kempster in Washington also contributed to this report.