U.S. Sends Home Some Employees of Moscow Embassy

Nine of 26 Americans sent to Moscow as cooks, drivers, clerks and other service workers at the U.S. Embassy--in part to replace Soviet citizens who used to do menial jobs--have been sent home or are about to be recalled for an assortment of problems, including fraternizing with Soviets, the State Department said Tuesday.

The fraternizing problem involving U.S. civilian employees in the last year shows that the security difficulties plaguing the U.S. mission in Moscow go beyond the Marine guard complement at the embassy and the since-discontinued practice of hiring Soviet citizens to do service work.

State Department spokesman Charles Redman, who announced the departures, said that none of those leaving had been accused of espionage.

The State Department said five workers have been sent home so far--two for medical reasons, two for fraternization and one for poor performance. The department said that four more employees will “be leaving for administrative reasons not related to misconduct” as soon as “departure arrangements can be made.” The reasons apparently include failure to adjust to life in Moscow.

Critics in Congress and the U.S. intelligence community have complained for years that the use of Soviet workers--some almost certainly under control of the KGB secret police--constituted a major security threat. The problem was dramatized by the recent arrests of two Marine guards accused of espionage after sexual involvement with Soviet women employed by the embassy.

Soviets Withdrawn

The State Department began last year to try to use Americans instead of Soviet citizens whenever possible. The Soviet government accelerated the process last October when it withdrew all Soviet employees from the embassy and the consulate in Leningrad in the midst of a diplomatic dispute with the United States. More than 100 Soviet citizens were covered by the withdrawal order.

Arthur A. Hartman, U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union for five years until his resignation earlier this year, said that the use of American contract employees poses a variety of security problems.

“I am always very skittish about easy solutions such as getting rid of all Soviet employees,” Hartman said in an interview with the Foreign Service Journal, the publication of the association of career Foreign Service officers. “You take a chance when you send people who are going to Moscow basically because it’s a job, not because they are professionally motivated. We are going to have a difficult time in the near future.”

Firm Supplies Workers

To replace the Soviet service workers, the State Department contracted with a Los Angeles firm, Pacific Architects & Engineers, to recruit American workers. Redman said that the firm ultimately hopes to send between 65 and 75 Americans to Moscow.

The State Department said that the firm has two contracts, one signed in January, 1986, to provide operations and maintenance workers for the residential area of the new U.S. Embassy compound, and another signed in November, 1986, to replace the Soviet workers withdrawn by the Soviet government.

The department said that all five of the workers already sent home were hired in the last year under the first contract. It did not specify which contract covered the four who are scheduled to leave soon.

Pacific Architects & Engineers is a 31-year-old firm that maintains public- and private-sector American outposts overseas. Currently, it has employees at work in 13 foreign countries. The company was reluctant to discuss its operations Tuesday, referring inquiries to the State Department.

Susceptibility to Bribes

Most officials agree with Hartman that it is a mistake to send overseas people who are motivated only by the prospects of high pay because they may be more susceptible to financial inducements offered by Soviet agents. However, if students or others with a particular interest in learning about the Soviet Union are recruited, they face frustrations because of the rules prohibiting fraternization with Soviet citizens.

The fraternization rule applies to any unauthorized contact with Soviet citizens, although the phrase is often used as a code word for illicit sexual relationships.

Hartman said that the KGB frequently uses female agents, some posing as foreign nationals, to trap unwary Americans.

“I can’t tell you how many times we’ve talked to employees who met these marvelous Finnish girls in the hotels, and we’ve had to tell them that they were Soviet agents,” Hartman said.