Soviets Arrest Researcher Accused of Spying for U.S.

The Soviet security police have arrested a staff member of a Moscow research institute on charges of spying for the United States, the news agency Tass reported Friday.

Tass identified the man as A.G. Tolkachyov, “a staff member of one of Moscow’s research institutes.” It said he had been caught with a specially designed miniature camera, the means for encoding messages, high-speed, two-way radio communications gear “and other equipment for espionage work,” and it said all this had been provided by the American CIA.

The brief Tass report said the security police, the KGB, also seized an unspecified quantity of “potent poisons” from Tolkachyov, which presumably he was to use to commit suicide.

It said that Tolkachyov was the previously unidentified Soviet citizen allegedly caught “red-handed” with an American diplomat on a spying mission in June. The diplomat, a second secretary at the U.S. Embassy identified as Paul M. Stombaugh, was expelled.

‘Caught in the Act’

“The spy was caught in the act during an attempt to pass on secret materials of defense nature to Paul M. Stombaugh, an officer of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, who acted under the cover of the second secretary of the U.S. Embassy in Moscow,” Tass said.

In waiting until now to publicize details of the arrest, the government appeared to be trying to counter the embarrassment caused by the recent defection of the KGB chief in London and Britain’s expulsion over the past 10 days of 31 Soviet officials accused of spying. The Soviet Union has retaliated by ordering 31 British Embassy staff, journalists and businessmen out of Moscow.

The Soviet public has been told about the Soviets expelled from London--an action the official press describes as a “gross provocation”--but not about the defection of Oleg A. Gordievski, the KGB chief in London, who according to British officials worked as a double agent for nearly 20 years.