U.S. Journalist May Be Tried as Spy, Soviets Say

The Soviet Foreign Ministry’s chief spokesman indicated Monday that Moscow intends to put American journalist Nicholas Daniloff on trial for espionage after an investigation is completed, and he drew a clear parallel between Daniloff’s arrest and that of a Soviet official in New York a week earlier.

“Daniloff has no diplomatic immunity” and “is under Soviet law,” spokesman Gennady I. Gerasimov said in an interview. “After an investigation, he will be tried.”

But at another point in the interview, Gerasimov left some doubt about whether the Kremlin has made a final decision on bringing Daniloff to trial. The case, he said, “is now under investigation. . . . If they (investigators) think he broke the law, they are going to bring the case to trial.”

But Gerasimov left no doubts about his view of Daniloff’s implication in spying. He called it “a classic example” of espionage. “This meeting, and delivering secret documents and getting secret information, usually it involves diplomats,” he said.

A Soviet criminal trial of an American would be highly unusual and, according to some analysts, could be a prolonged process that would drag on for months--through the period in which U.S. and Soviet officials are scheduled to plan for a summit meeting in Washington.

Trial of U.S. Pilot

The last trial of an American on espionage charges in the Soviet Union was that of pilot Francis Gary Powers, who was imprisoned after his U-2 reconnaissance plane was shot down over Soviet territory in 1960.

Daniloff, the correspondent here for U.S. News & World Report, was arrested Saturday and accused by the KGB secret police in a statement Sunday of “engaging in an act of espionage.” He has not been formally charged but is being held in Lefortovo Prison here.

He was apprehended in the Lenin Hills area of Moscow after a Soviet acquaintance handed him a package that the acquaintance said contained newspaper clippings but turned out to hold maps marked top secret.

“The matter of importance is that his actions went beyond his usual journalistic activity,” Gerasimov said.

But in an apparent attempt to minimize the political fallout between the United States and the Soviet Union, he said, “This is a minor matter compared to the preparations for the U.S.-Soviet summit.” He added, “Of course, it’s unfortunate, with regard to the political developments.”

‘Affront to Journalism’

Mortimer B. Zuckerman, chairman and editor in chief of U.S. News & World Report, arrived here Monday to seek Daniloff’s release, and he condemned the arrest as “phony,” an “affront to journalism” and “a crude contrivance.”

Asked why the Soviet Union was departing from its usual practice of promptly expelling Westerners charged with spying, Gerasimov said Daniloff “has no immunity. I can ask the same question of the Americans in the case of Zakharov. Why did they not just let him go? He is still being held. They didn’t even allow him to have bail.”

Gennady F. Zakharov, a Soviet employee of the U.N. Secretariat, faces spying charges in New York after his arrest on a subway platform Aug. 23. According to U.S. authorities, Zakharov had just paid $1,000 to an employee of a military subcontractor who was cooperating with the FBI and received classified documents relating to a U.S. Air Force jet engine. Like Daniloff, Zakharov has no diplomatic immunity.

In drawing a parallel between the two cases, Gerasimov appeared to be suggesting that the KGB arrest of Daniloff was a direct response to the FBI arrest of Zakharov a week earlier, but he insisted that Daniloff’s arrest “is a separate case.”

A Soviet investigator also appeared to draw a parallel in the timetable of the Daniloff and Zakharov cases Monday. He told Daniloff that the decision about whether he will face trial or be released will be made in 10 days, Daniloff’s wife, Ruth, said after she visited her husband in jail. Zakharov is to appear in a U.S. court hearing Sept. 9.

‘It’s a Farce’

Ruth Daniloff, talking to reporters, criticized the Soviet handling of her husband’s case, charging that “it’s a farce of an investigation, some kind of surrealistic nightmare. If you plant that kind of evidence on someone, you intend to use it. It’s a typical crude job.”

Zuckerman, who is to meet with Soviet officials today, said, “I expect to make clear to people in the Soviet government how concerned we are for Nick and the fact that we will not accept phony arrests as a way of dealing with foreign journalists working in this country.”

Ruth Daniloff and the couple’s son, Caleb, 16, were allowed an hour with Daniloff. She and a U.S. consular officer had also met with him Sunday.

Ruth Daniloff described her husband as “very controlled,” but said he was “also very concerned.”

“He is not being treated harshly or badly,” she said.

‘A Lot of Restrictions’

By Soviet law, prisoners are allowed to receive 11 pounds of food a month, but Ruth Daniloff said that there are “a lot of restrictions.” She took food, but was not allowed to give him toothpaste, nuts or vitamins.

Her husband’s cellmate, she said, “is a Soviet mathematician who is sophisticated, and obviously planted there to watch Nick’s psychological moves, what makes him angry or excited.”

Daniloff, who speaks Russian fluently, is a veteran correspondent who was about to end a 5 1/2-year assignment in the Soviet Union.

In the first official Soviet explanation of the events leading up to Daniloff’s arrest, Gerasimov said that in the meeting Saturday, Daniloff “was given an envelope and he accepted the envelope, and it was opened in his presence.”

Daniloff told his wife Saturday that eight KGB officers arrested him after a Soviet acquaintence from Frunze in the Soviet republic of Kirghiz had given him a package as a gift, telling him that it contained newspaper clippings. Daniloff had given the acquaintance two American novels.

“When they opened the envelope,” Gerasimov said in an interview, “it was not clippings or not only clippings but documents that were stamped secret or top secret.”

Asked what had happened to the Soviet acquaintance, Gerasimov said, “I don’t know,” later adding, “I assume he was also arrested.”