Daniloff ‘Caught in Act’: Gorbachev : U.S. Is Exploiting Espionage Case to Breed Hatred, Soviet Leader Charges

Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev on Thursday labeled American reporter Nicholas Daniloff a “spy who was caught in the act” of espionage and charged that the United States is exploiting the case to wreck Soviet-American relations and “reap a harvest of hatred.”

In his first public comments on the Daniloff case, broadcast by Moscow radio’s Russian-language service, Gorbachev complained that the United States frequently has resorted to “inventions” in the past to frustrate superpower relations.

“This time, they have picked up the Daniloff case, the case of a spy who was caught in the act,” Gorbachev said. He made the remarks during a walking tour in the city of Krasnodar in the Caucasus Mountains, Moscow radio reported.

‘Harvest of Hatred’

The Soviet leader said that espionage is a serious matter but that, in the international perspective, the Daniloff case is a common occurrence. The Americans, Gorbachev said, “have turned it around in such a way as to damage and sow doubts about the Soviet Union’s policy, to damage its image, simply to reap a harvest of hatred against us.”

“So will we get nervous? We will not get nervous, comrades,” he said. “They will not provoke us.”

Gorbachev’s flat denunciation of Daniloff as a spy appears to add to growing tensions between the superpowers and to be a personal slap at President Reagan, who has publicly vouched for Daniloff’s innocence and asked for his release.

The Reagan Administration’s reaction was terse. “The general secretary (Gorbachev is general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party) is misinformed. Nick Daniloff is innocent,” John M. Poindexter, the President’s national security adviser, told reporters Thursday as he accompanied Reagan on a campaign swing through Louisiana and Alabama.

State Department spokesman Bernard Kalb, also responding to Gorbachev’s statement, said the reporter was the victim of “contrived charges, a frame-up, and there is no retreat from that.”

Show of Toughness

The tenor of Gorbachev’s remarks about Daniloff was widely interpreted here as a sign that, for domestic reasons, he may feel the need to show that he can be tough. He has tried in the past to follow a more conciliatory approach to the West than previous Soviet leaders, but he has come under criticism in some quarters here for such overtures, particularly his unilateral extension of a nuclear testing moratorium while U.S. tests continue.

Gorbachev’s statements may also be part of the Soviet bargaining position as Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze opens two days of meetings today in Washington with Secretary of State George P. Shultz. Shultz has already made it clear that Daniloff’s case will head the agenda for those meetings, which were originally called to set a date and discuss the agenda for a second summit between Gorbachev and Reagan.

Daniloff, 51, a U.S. News & World Report correspondent, was detained in Moscow on Aug. 30 by eight KGB secret police agents after he met a Soviet acquaintance who thrust a package at him. The journalist said he did not know what was in the package, but the KGB later said it contained secret maps and photographs of Soviet military installations.

Reagan wrote to Gorbachev, reassuring the Soviet leader that Daniloff was not a spy, but Soviet authorities formally charged him with espionage anyway. Only after Gorbachev replied to the President was a deal struck under which Daniloff and Gennady F. Zakharov, a Soviet employee of the United Nations jailed by the FBI as a spy in New York, were released from prison to the custody of their respective ambassadors. Criminal charges are still pending against both.

Countermeasures Threatened

Meanwhile, a Soviet Foreign Ministry spokesman warned that countermeasures will be taken against a U.S. order expelling 25 Soviet diplomats assigned to the United Nations by Oct. 1.

“Actions of this sort do not go without consequences in international relations,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Boris D. Pyadyshev said at a press briefing.

But he declined to say when the countermeasures will be taken or who might be affected by Kremlin actions in reply to the American move.

“This provocative action is designed to lead us aside from solution of urgent questions,” Pyadyshev added. “It’s a scandalous decision and a hostile act deliberately intended to worsen Soviet-American relations on the eve of important talks.”

‘Mirror Reflection’

The spokesman dodged a question about how the Soviet Union could take countermeasures in Moscow where there are no Americans working for an international organization in the Soviet capital.

“The principle of mirror reflection is not always the best method of action,” Pyadyshev said.

This was taken as a hint that the Kremlin might retaliate against U.S. diplomats or other Americans living here, even though they are not precise counterparts of the Soviet aides at the U.N. who are threatened with expulsion.

A year ago, when Britain expelled 31 Soviet diplomats, business representatives and journalists as spies, the Kremlin immediately ousted 31 Britons in a tit-for-tat response.

Few Businessmen

Aside from an estimated 250 U.S. diplomats in Moscow, however, there are only a handful of American business representatives and about 35 accredited journalists in Moscow.

In an unusually harsh attack on the Reagan Administration, the Foreign Ministry spokesman said Administration policy is self-righteous and arrogant.

“Do they think if in the White House they look at the moon and say it’s the sun, all others must believe it’s the sun?” Pyadyshev asked scornfully. “It is high time they learned respect for the opinions of others.

“It’s time to forget the habit of totalitarian thinking . . . and get used to pluralism and a multiplicity of views,” he added.

During the briefing, Pyadyshev said that the investigation of charges against Daniloff has provided “unquestionable proof that this journalist was involved in spying activity.” Daniloff has repeatedly asserted his innocence.

He said he was framed by the KGB to use as a bargaining counter in Soviet efforts to free Zakharov, who now claims he was framed by the FBI.