Newsman Says KGB Favors His Release Pending Trial : Soviet Held in U.S. Must Also Get Out

Jailed American reporter Nicholas Daniloff said today that his KGB captors like the idea of releasing him to the custody of the U.S. ambassador pending his trial on spying charges, a colleague said.

Soviet authorities made clear, however, that the release would have to be reciprocal, the colleague, Jeff Trimble, quoted Daniloff as saying.

Authorities did not mention directly the case of Gennady F. Zakharov, a Soviet U.N. employee arrested last month in New York and indicted Tuesday on three counts of espionage, Trimble quoted Daniloff as saying.

Daniloff’s wife, Ruth, has alleged that Soviet authorities framed her husband in response to the Zakharov arrest.

‘A Good Idea’

KGB investigators told Daniloff a suggestion that he be freed pending his trial “was a good idea, (that) what was needed is a cooling-off period,” Trimble quoted his colleague as saying.

Daniloff, the 51-year-old Moscow bureau chief of U.S. News & World Report, was arrested Aug. 30 and indicted on Sunday. If convicted, he could face the death penalty. He has denied the allegations.

He made his comments in a phone call from Lefortovo Prison to his wife, who was at the office of U.S. News & World Report, for which both Daniloff and Trimble work.

Investigators of the KGB secret police were with Daniloff when he placed the call. Trimble, with the consent of the Daniloffs, listened in on the conversation.

Could Defuse Tensions

Daniloff also said the best way to defuse U.S.-Soviet tensions over his arrest would be to release both him and Zakharov pending their trials, Trimble said.

“What is needed is a cooling off-period. There is no need for a swap. Let’s first get ourselves into a more comfortable spot, say living in Spago House, then go from there,” Trimble quoted Daniloff as saying.

Spago House is the residence of U.S. Ambassador Arthur Hartman.

Ruth Daniloff, who visited her husband Tuesday, said he didn’t want his case to thwart attempts to improve ties between Moscow and Washington or become an impediment to holding a superpower summit later this year.

Warning to Gorbachev

President Reagan wrote to Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev earlier this week and warned that relations between the two countries are seriously threatened by Daniloff’s detention.

“I think what he was saying was ‘Let’s cool down the situation and one way to deal with the situation is to let both of the quote-unquote spies out of jail into the custody of their respective ambassadors,’ ” Ruth Daniloff said.

Under such a deal, the diplomatic missions would serve as guarantors that the defendants show up for trial.

There was no immediate indication today whether the Reagan Administration would agree to a temporary release of Daniloff and Zakharov.

No Straight Exchange

U.S. officials have ruled out a deal to free Daniloff in a straight exchange for Zakharov, saying Daniloff is innocent and the two cases cannot be compared.

Ruth Daniloff said her husband was convinced the Soviets are treating his case as a “mirror” of the Zakharov case.

Daniloff was charged with making contact with U.S. special services between 1982 and 1986; taking part in a purported CIA action to establish secret contact with a Soviet citizen identified only as “Roman,” and conducting other espionage actions.

He was arrested after a Soviet acquaintance identified by the Daniloffs as Misha gave him a package containing documents marked secret.