Soviets Evacuate Beirut Embassy : Only 14 Remain; Others Travel to Damascus in Face of Bomb Threat

The Soviet Union, sharing for the first time the frustration of a superpower trying to cope with terrorism, evacuated many of its diplomats and almost all their dependents from Beirut on Friday, hours before a deadline set by Islamic fundamentalists who had threatened to blow up the Soviet Embassy there.

Beirut radio reported that 135 Soviets, many of them women and children, left the Lebanese capital in automobiles and buses for the three-hour drive to Damascus, Syria, where they could board airliners for the flight to Moscow. The evacuation left the Soviet Embassy with the same sort of skeleton staff that Washington has maintained in Lebanon in recent months.

The previously unknown Islamic Liberation Organization said it would demolish the embassy if the Soviets remained in Beirut after 4 p.m. Friday. The deadline passed without incident, however.

Cease-Fire Arranged

The organization--which earlier claimed responsibility for kidnaping four Soviet diplomats and murdering one of them--also demanded an end to fighting in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli, where Syrian-backed leftist guerrillas had been battling a Sunni Muslim militia for 19 days. Syria, the Kremlin’s closest ally in the Middle East, responded by engineering a cease-fire.

Among those Soviets who remained behind in Beirut was Tatiana Svirsky, wife of abducted embassy physician Nikolai Svirsky, who stood in the shaded gateway of the embassy to say goodby to the evacuees. Along with Svirsky, commercial officer Valery Mirikokv, press attache Oleg Spirin and cultural attache Arkady Katkov were kidnaped Monday. Katkov’s body was found Wednesday.

“If I had no hope, I would not be staying,” Tatiana Svirsky told the Washington Post. Asked whether she was angry at the Lebanese for failing to protect foreign diplomats here, she said, “Yes, I feel bitter,” then looked away and wept.

Yuri Souslikov, the Soviet charge d’affaires, said he found it “very strange” that the kidnapers had not tried to get in touch with the embassy to negotiate the release of the missing officials. “We don’t know where they are or who really has them,” he said.

Soviet sources in Beirut said only 10 members of the diplomatic mission would remain there, in addition to four commercial representatives. All Soviet journalists except the correspondent of the Tass news agency also left for Damascus.

Also remaining behind was the coffin containing Katkov’s body. A diplomat explained that the “necessary documents were not ready yet.”

Although Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev told a news conference in Paris that Moscow is “not helpless” in the face of terrorism, the Soviet response thus far has been markedly similar to the actions taken by the United States after similar provocations.

Limits to Power Seen

Yonah Alexander, director of the Institute for Studies in International Terrorism at the State University of New York, said that the Soviets learned something the United States has known for some time--”a superpower obviously has limits on the exercise of power.”

“Terrorism is a great equalizer,” Alexander said. “Terrorism is low-level conflict. Neither the Soviets nor the United States is prepared to deal with this as effectively as they would deal with a nuclear attack.”

Critics of the Reagan Administration’s failure to follow through on repeated threats to retaliate for terrorist attacks on Americans frequently have argued that terrorists would not dare treat the Soviets in the same fashion. It is possible, of course, that either Washington or Moscow may yet take military action against terrorists.

‘Wooing Western Europe’

One frequent critic, Robert H. Kupperman, the author of several books on terrorism, said: “Gorbachev is now in the business of wooing Western Europe. I don’t think he wants to be seen running around like a rampaging bear.”

But, Kupperman predicted: “Six months from now they (Soviet intelligence) will find the killer and they will kill him. They have the patience. I don’t think they want anything overt that would embarrass (Syrian President Hafez) Assad.”

Counterproductive Responses

But Jerry F. Hough, a Duke University political science professor and a Soviet policy specialist at the Brookings Institution in Washington, said that the Soviets, like the Americans, seem to have discovered that most of the obvious responses would be counterproductive.

“Obviously, we would like the Soviets to react in a drastic way that undercuts Soviet interests,” he said. “If the Soviet Union reacts in some drastic way, Muslim fundamentalists may drive trucks loaded with explosives into Soviet embassies throughout the Middle East.

“This reminds us that when great powers try to introduce order into totally chaotic domestic situations in other countries, they find it is a tar baby,” he said. “We’ve tried to do it often, using Israel as a proxy and the Soviets have tried to use the Syrians. The terrorists just go one step back--they hold us responsible for what Israel does and they hold the Soviets responsible for what Syria does.”

Beirut radio, the official Lebanese government station, said that the evacuating Soviet diplomats were escorted by heavily armed Druze militiamen.

“The evacuation of most of the Soviet Embassy is seen as a direct result of the execution of one of the kidnaped Soviet officials this week and the threats by the Islamic Liberation Organization to flatten the embassy compound,” the broadcast said.

Wire service accounts from Tripoli said that the Syrian-mediated cease-fire seemed to be holding. But truces are often short-lived in Lebanon where cynics say “cease-fire” is a synonym for “reload.”

Chided Administration

Edward K. Lutwack, a Washington-based defense consultant who frequently has chided the Administration for its tepid response to terrorism, predicted that the Syrian-backed attack on the Sunni Muslim militia in Tripoli would resume as soon as the Soviet diplomats are released.

“I have no doubt that the Soviet strategy is to get their diplomats back and then go after them,” Lutwack said. “This is a KGB (Soviet secret police) assignment, something for the assassination squads.”