6 Marines in Leningrad to Be Recalled in Spy Inquiry

The Pentagon and State Department said today they are recalling and replacing the six Marine guards posted at the U.S. consulate in the Soviet city of Leningrad.

The move, which follows the arrest earlier this week of a former consulate guard on charges of espionage, follows a similar move to replace the 28-man guard force at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow.

The removal of the embassy guards is expected to begin next month. They are to return to the United States for questioning by military investigators probing a sex-and-spy scandal that has rocked the Marine Corps’ diplomatic security force.

“The switch of the Marine security guards (at the Leningrad consulate) will take place during May,” the Pentagon and the State Department said in a joint statement.

Precautionary Measure

The two departments stressed that “there is no evidence that any of the returning Marines are implicated in any wrongdoing.”

“This measure is precautionary in nature and is intended to facilitate the on-going security investigation.”

The move to replace the consulate guards comes just two days after the Pentagon announced the Marine Corps had arrested a third former security guard on suspicion of espionage.

The suspect, 26-year-old Sgt. John Joseph Weirick, is confined to the brig at Camp Pendleton, Calif., and is suspected of espionage while working as a security guard at the Leningrad consulate in 1981 and 1982.

Demand for Documents

Meanwhile today, Senate Republican leader Bob Dole, one of President Reagan’s staunchest allies in Congress, demanded from the floor of the Senate that the State Department turn over any written refusal by the former U.S. ambassador to Moscow to tighten security at his embassy.

Dole said he had received “disturbing reports” that the embassy in late 1984 had “strongly resisted badly needed improvements in security procedures at the embassy--on the rather extraordinary grounds that such improvements would somehow damage U.S.-Soviet relations.”

The Kansas Republican said that according to his information, Arthur A. Hartman, who recently retired as ambassador to Moscow, “sent a harshly worded cable” to Secretary of State George P. Shultz.

Dole said his information was “not confirmed,” but he said he wants to “get to the bottom of this matter as soon as possible.” He said he and Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), the ranking Republican on the Foreign Affairs Committee, had written to Shultz asking that the cable be released to the Senate.