Analysis : Soviet Contacts Must Continue, U.S. Journalist Says : Daniloff Case Making Reporters Edgy

The arrest of American reporter Nicholas Daniloff on charges of spying has raised the stakes for other Western reporters here who try to stay in touch with Soviet citizens.

Before Daniloff’s arrest three weeks ago, foreign reporters in Moscow generally believed that the worst punishment they could expect for any alleged misdeeds would be expulsion from the country.

Now, for the first time in four decades, since the end of the repressive era of Josef Stalin, there is a precedent for bringing charges of spying against reporters seeking information classified by the Soviets as secret.

In this secretive country, secret encompasses a vast expanse of information, including the size of the annual grain crop and the location of radioactive waste dumps.

Daniloff, a correspondent for U.S. News & World Report, has said he was entrapped when a Soviet friend of many years, whom he identified only as Misha, handed him a package containing secret military maps while they were walking in a Moscow park. Daniloff said he assumes that this was set up by the KGB, the Soviet security and intelligence agency.

That a Soviet acquaintance, someone Daniloff said he trusted, should have helped the KGB entrap a correspondent sent out warning signals for other reporters here with Soviet sources of their own.

“I have met a guy who is very interesting, just like Misha,” said Antero Pietila, a Baltimore Sun correspondent in Moscow for three years. “We have not talked about anything remotely secret, but at the same time I am wondering, because he could be a plant.”

Joyce Barnathan, a correspondent for Newsweek, said she plans to be more cautious in the future, even though it might not help.

“If you are the target, you have no defense,” she said. “Nick’s arrest proves that. They could throw something in your lap.”

But Barnathan said she will try to play by the rules as the Soviets define them and refuse to accept any sealed envelopes or transmit letters for Soviet contacts.

“Why hand them any pretext?” 0he said. “I don’t intend to be intimidated, but this case makes you rethink all your contacts.”

Still, the American correspondents said they have no choice but to go on meeting Soviet friends and unofficial contacts on street corners and at park benches. Because the foreign press is housed in foreigners-only ghettos, where the Soviet police watch everyone’s movements, and because offices and apartments are assumed to be bugged, the open air is regarded as the safest place to talk.

“I still have a lot of friends I meet in the street,” said Nancy Traver, a correspondent for Time. “Every Moscow journalist must do that, but now I look around to see if anyone’s watching me.”

Some correspondents believe they should travel in pairs, but Traver thinks this would be a mistake.

“We shouldn’t become paranoid,” she said. “American journalists are too shut off from the Soviet people anyway, and they must continue what contacts they can.”

Daniloff himself is not sure what lessons, if any, should be drawn from his experience by other reporters in the Moscow press corps.

“I felt I was very cautious during my 5 1/2 years here,” Daniloff said after he was released last Friday from prison into the custody of the U.S. Embassy. “I was doing journalistic activity and I suppose I dug deep, and because I did that I became a little more obvious than people who just might rewrite Tass.

“Here’s the insidious part: The more you dig, the more you draw suspicion onto yourself.”