Soviets Flee Beirut in Bomb Threat : 135 Embassy Staff, Relatives Evacuated; Deadline Passes

The Soviet Embassy evacuated 135 dependents and non-essential staff members Friday in response to threats of a suicide bomb attack that followed the abduction of four embassy personnel.

A Soviet diplomat evacuated to Damascus said: “We know who the kidnapers are. . . . We will see they pay . . . and very dearly.”

The four men were kidnaped last Monday and one was found two days later in a West Beirut garbage dump, shot through the head. An anonymous telephone caller gave directions to the body and another said suicide bombers would blow up the embassy at 4 p.m. Friday.

An anonymous caller said the Islamic Liberation Organization was responsible for the kidnapings. The bomb threats also were delivered in its name.

Leftist Lebanese militias ringed the walled embassy compound in Muslim West Beirut with Soviet-built T-54 tanks and armored vehicles to block any approach by a car bomber. However, 4 p.m. came and went, and nothing happened.

The evacuees, most of them women and children, were driven in a convoy of buses and trucks to Damascus, Syria, to be flown home. They were escorted by Druze militiamen and Lebanese police.

About 30 Remain

Yuri Souslikov, the embassy charge d’affaires and the senior Soviet diplomat in Lebanon, remained behind with about 30 other diplomats.

The kidnapers said they would kill the three other captives unless the Soviet Union forced Syria, its main Middle East ally, to call off an offensive by leftist militias it supports against Sunni fundamentalists in the northern port of Tripoli.

A delegation from Iran, which has ties to both Syria and the Tripoli fundamentalists, negotiated a cease-fire Thursday that halted the fighting after 19 days. There were no reports that more Soviets had been killed, but neither was there any indication they would be released.

The scene at the embassy was one that had become familiar to Americans in recent years: tearful relatives milling by the buses, haggard diplomats issuing orders through walkie-talkies and helping load hastily packed bags, heavily armed security personnel patrolling the embassy grounds.

“We have had many evacuations,” said a Soviet diplomat, “but never one like this. I have spent 15 years altogether in Lebanon. I have seen everything here.”

Also remaining behind is Tatiana Svirsky, wife of abducted embassy physician Nikolai Svirsky, who stood in the shaded gateway to the embassy Friday morning and stared vacantly at the commotion around her. Dr. Svirsky, press attache Oleg Spirin, commercial section representative Valery Mirikov and consular secretary Arkady Katkov were kidnapped in two separate actions last Monday, and Katkov’s body was found Wednesday.

“If I had no hope, I would not be staying,” Tatiana Svirsky said shyly, lowering her eyes. Most other women were ordered out by the Kremlin along with other non-essential diplomatic staff.

Asked whether she was angry at the Lebanese, she snapped, “Yes, I feel bitter.” Then she looked away and wept.

Between 70 and 100 Soviet residents and diplomats with stuffed travel bags milled around the embassy grounds off the Corniche Mazraa as Soviet-made T-54 tanks with their guns pointing outward guarded side streets. Helping supervise the evacuation were officials of the Druze Progressive Socialist Party, which Soviet officials refer to as “our friends in Lebanon.”