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Soviets Reignite Furor Over U.S. Officer’s Killing

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Times Staff Writers

The Soviet Union on Monday abruptly reignited the dispute over the killing of a U.S. Army officer in East Germany by contradicting a State Department statement that the Soviets had agreed not to use force or weapons against accredited military observers.

The State Department branded the Soviet statement unacceptable.

In harshly worded remarks issued by its embassy here, the Soviet Union also denied that it had agreed to consider paying compensation to the family of Maj. Arthur D. Nicholson Jr., 37. He was killed March 24 by a Soviet sentry who discovered him taking photographs near a Soviet tank shed.

Assertion Attacked

“The assertion (by the State Department) that the Soviet side allegedly agreed to consider some kind of compensation in connection with the incident and renounced the right to take legitimate steps provided for by the military manuals does not correspond to the facts,” the Soviets said.

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As Soviet spokesmen have done all along, the embassy said Nicholson’s death was “regrettable” but it insisted: “The entire responsibility for what happened rests wholly on the appropriate U.S. authorities.”

The State Department said last Wednesday that Gen. Mikhail M. Zaitsev, commander of Soviet forces in East Germany, agreed during a 4 1/2-hour meeting with Gen. Glenn K. Otis, commander of the U.S. Army in Europe, that Soviet sentries would no longer “use force or weapons” against members of the U.S. military team operating in East Germany under terms of post-World War II agreements. U.S. regulations have long prohibited the use of deadly force against Soviet military observers in West Germany.

In its statement Monday, the Soviet Embassy said it was puzzled by the State Department version of the Otis-Zaitsev meeting. The Soviets said regulations preclude the use of weapons by either side “when apprehending and driving out members of the military liaison missions” of the other country. But it said the Nicholson case was not covered by the rules.

It said the sentry’s actions “were not taken against a member of the U.S. military mission as such, but against an unknown intruder who was carrying out an intelligence mission and did not comply with the warnings of the sentry, who was acting in strict conformity with the military manuals.”

The Pentagon and State Department have insisted that Nicholson and Sgt. Jesse G. Schatz, who accompanied him, were both in uniform and were traveling in a clearly marked liaison mission vehicle.

The U.S. officials conceded that Nicholson was taking photographs near a Soviet military building, but they denied he was in a restricted area. Under U.S. procedures, a Soviet military observer taking similar action in West Germany could be detained and questioned, but the rules expressly prohibit the use of force to take him into custody.

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U.S. Taken By Surprise

State Department officials were taken by surprise by the embassy statement. Several hours after it was issued, the department responded with a one-paragraph statement of its own: “We have seen the press reports coming from the Soviet Embassy. We have informed the Soviet Embassy that their interpretation of the issue is unacceptable. We stand by our version of the Otis-Zaitsev meeting.”

The Soviet statement came as angry members of the House passed a nonbinding resolution condemning Moscow for killing Nicholson.

The vote of 394 to 1 came after a parade of lawmakers denounced the Soviet Union and asserted that the shooting should be linked to any disarmament talks with the Kremlin.

The resolution accused the Soviet Union of violating the 1947 Soviet-U.S. Military Liaison Missions Agreement, which gives each side freedom of travel outside specifically restricted areas in both the Eastern and Western parts of postwar Germany.

In a related incident, State Department spokesman Edward P. Djerejian confirmed that Soviet air traffic controllers threatened to order Soviet fighters to intercept a U.S.-owned corporate jet in April, 1984, on a flight from West Germany to West Berlin, 110 miles inside East Germany, if it refused a demand for the name of the firm using the jet.

He said the threat was withdrawn when U.S. officials told the Soviet controllers the name of the corporation. The plane completed its flight “without any harassment,” he noted.

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Djerejian’s comments came in response to a column by Rowland Evans and Robert Novak that described the incident as “a direct Soviet threat to shoot down an American corporate jet on a flight to Berlin.”

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