Top American Envoys to Skip Soviet Parade

The United States has decided to deliver a mild rebuff to the Soviet Union by sending only two mid-ranking diplomats to a military parade Thursday marking the 40th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe.

The absence of U.S. Ambassador Arthur A. Hartman from the Red Square parade will demonstrate American concern over the March 24 shooting death of U.S. Army Maj. Arthur D. Nicholson Jr., a U.S. Embassy spokesman said Monday.

Not even the deputy chief of the U.S. mission, Curtis W. Kamman, will be on hand for the parade, the spokesman said, adding that the diplomats assigned to the parade will be of counselor rank.

But Hartman, in a carefully calibrated diplomatic move, will place a wreath at the tomb of an unknown Soviet soldier on Wednesday and attend a reception given by Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev after the parade on Thursday.

U.S. diplomats will not attend a Kremlin function Wednesday in connection with the anniversary of the war’s end.

The boycott is also aimed at protesting the Soviet emphasis on its role in the war against Nazism and its relative neglect of the need for reconciliation with former enemies, the American spokesman said.

Diplomats representing other countries that were wartime allies of the Soviet Union, including British Ambassador Iain Sutherland, plan to be present for the parade. In the past, the United States and most of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization countries have stayed away from military events to protest the Soviet Union’s 1979 invasion of Afghanistan.

Nicholson, 37, was shot by a Soviet sentry in East Germany after he was caught, wearing a camouflage uniform and allegedly photographing a Soviet tank.

U.S. officials said he had a right, as a member of a U.S. military mission, to be where he was. They said he was murdered, and they demanded a Soviet apology and compensation for his family.

Soviet officials said Nicholson was shot as a trespasser, that he ignored the sentry’s warning and attempted to flee.

In protest, the United States has expelled an assistant military attache from the Soviet Embassy.