Ghana Expels 4 U.S. Officials; State Dept. Threatens Aid Halt

Ghana expelled four U.S. officials--including two alleged CIA officers--today for what it called “wholly unacceptable” activities. The United States retaliated by ousting four Ghanaian Embassy staffers in Washington and threatened to cut off aid to the West African nation.

Ghana’s order was linked to the collapse of an alleged CIA espionage operation in that country that led this week to the first exchange of spy suspects between Washington and a Third World nation.

Foreign Affairs Secretary Obed Asamoah said the four Americans were ordered out of the country within 48 hours for engaging in activities “wholly unacceptable and not conducive to good relations between Ghana and the United States.”

Ghanaian officials named two of the Americans as Bruce Dean Tefft and Annette Woodams and said they are “recently arrived” CIA officers. They identified the others as Lawrence Garufi, the director of the U.S. Information Agency in Ghana, and Robert Lee Kile, an embassy administrative officer.

In Washington, a State Department spokeswoman called Ghana’s action “unwarranted” and said the four unnamed Ghanaians in this country were given the same 48-hour period to leave.

U.S. May Terminate Aid

She also said the United States will review, and possibly terminate, U.S. aid to Ghana, which amounted to $15.1 million this year.

In Accra, Asamoah said he had told U.S. Ambassador to Ghana Robert E. Fritts that the step was taken because Ghana is determined to avoid a recurrence of the events that led to the arrest and detention of an “innocent” Ghanaian citizen in the United States.

Michael Soussoudis, 39, a cousin of the Ghanaian head of state, Flight Lt. Jerry Rawlings, was arrested on espionage charges during a June visit to the United States and sentenced Monday in Alexandria, Va., to 20 years in jail.

He was granted a suspension of the sentence and sent home to Ghana in exchange for the release from Ghanaian jails of eight men described by Justice Department officials in Washington as “friendly to the interests of the United States.” Two of them had been convicted as spies in Ghana.

Girlfriend in CIA

The eight were fingered as U.S. spies by Soussoudis, who learned their names from his girlfriend, Sharon Scranage, 30, a CIA employee who worked in the U.S. Embassy in Accra from May, 1983, to May, 1984. Scranage was sentenced to a five-year jail term.

New African, an authoritative London-based monthly magazine, said information passed on by Scranage compromised CIA operations in at least five other West African nations and led to the execution of at least four army officers in Burkina Faso.

When the prisoner swap was announced this week, both governments indicated that they wanted to close the case as quickly as possible. Diplomats in Accra said they also wanted to avoid trials at which potentially embarrassing revelations would come out.

The Justice Department said the United States offered political asylum to the eight Ghanaians, who were reportedly expelled to Togo with their families six days ago.