Canadian Newsman’s Soviet Interpreter Briefly Detained; Attempted ‘Setup’ Seen

Canadian Broadcasting Corp. correspondent Michael McIvor said Friday that police detained his official Soviet interpreter when she met with a Soviet man who had requested a meeting with a Canadian reporter.

McIvor said he had sent his interpreter, Irina Melnikov, to escort the Soviet man into the CBC office. He said that she was held at a police station for 30 to 40 minutes and questioned.

“When she came back, she was really and truly frightened,” McIvor said.

He said the incident appeared to have been an attempt to “set me up.”

“I don’t have any idea why. This comes at a really weird time. Not only after Daniloff, but after (Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A.) Shevardnadze had by all appearances a very successful visit to Canada,” he said.

Sending a Signal?

“Maybe they’re sending out the signal that the Daniloff case may be over but don’t get the idea that it’s any looser out there,” McIvor said.

He was referring to the Aug. 30 arrest of American reporter Nicholas Daniloff on spy charges. Daniloff left the Soviet Union on Monday under a superpower agreement that also freed Gennady F. Zakharov, a Soviet citizen convicted in New York on espionage charges.

U.S. officials insisted Daniloff was innocent and was framed in retaliation for Zakharov’s arrest.

McIvor said a Canadian diplomat told him Thursday that a Soviet man had called the embassy seeking the telephone number of a Canadian reporter. He said he gave his permission for the diplomat to give the man his office phone number.

The Soviet man called Friday, but refused to identify himself or say what he wanted to talk about, McIvor said. He said he told the man he could come to the CBC office.

Guarded Compounds

All foreigners live in compounds guarded by police who bar unescorted Soviets, so McIvor said he sent Melnikov down to meet the man.

“She went outside and he was standing across the street,” McIvor said. “They started to walk back and had just crossed the street when they were approached very fast by men in plain clothes who flashed a red ID card and said they were from the Criminal Investigation Division.”

The plainclothes men put Melnikov and the Soviet man into a black sedan and drove them to a nearby police station, McIvor said.

He said that Melnikov told him she identified herself as a Soviet citizen and that one of the plainclothesmen asked her, “Haven’t you heard about the Daniloff case?”

Like all Soviet staff members of Western news offices, Melnikov works for a government agency charged with furnishing such workers. She had no identification with her, but the police eventually released her, McIvor said.