U.S. Diplomat Quits Poland After Accusation of Spying : Caught While Meeting Contact, Warsaw Says

Poland today accused a U.S. diplomat of spying and said he left the country after being detained by police during a clandestine meeting with a Polish contact.

Jerzy Urban, the official government spokesman, said Albert Mueller, a political officer at the U.S. Embassy in Warsaw, had gathered military intelligence and information on activities by the banned Solidarity trade movement.

“Albert Mueller was caught passing to a Polish citizen spying equipment, spying tasks, code tables and dollars,” Urban said. “Counterintelligence of the Interior Ministry caught the American diplomat red-handed.”

Left Poland Sunday

A U.S. Embassy spokesman confirmed Mueller’s detention by police on Saturday evening and said Mueller left the country for the United States on Sunday. But the spokesman, Paul Smith, refused to comment on the Polish charges.

The espionage charges followed a recent warming trend in U.S.-Polish relations after a five-year diplomatic freeze and came amid a U.S.-Soviet dispute over spying in Moscow and Washington.

“The U.S. authorities show specific spying mania toward representatives of socialist countries,” Urban said. “At the same time, the U.S.A. has in socialist countries, also in Poland, numerous spying groups.”

The accusations against the diplomat followed publication in Paris of an interview with a Polish army colonel who defected to the United States. In the interview, the colonel described Soviet pressure on Poland to declare martial law in 1980-81.

Not Persona Non Grata

Solidarity, the first free trade movement in the Soviet Bloc, was suppressed and outlawed under martial law.

Urban said Mueller had not been declared persona non grata because he had already left Poland by Tuesday, when the Foreign Ministry handed a note of protest to U.S. officials.

Urban played a police videotape that he said showed Mueller’s meeting with a Polish contact in what appeared to be a park and his interrogation by police officials after his detention.

“My name is Albert Mueller. I am an American diplomat. Please contact the American Embassy,” Mueller said under police questioning about his actions. The mustachioed diplomat was wearing blue jeans and a dark sweater.

Equipment Displayed

The tape also displayed equipment and a large quantity of U.S. dollars Mueller allegedly was attempting to turn over to the contact.

The equipment included a pencil-shaped object that appeared to hold microfilm, a computer disc and a map of Warsaw displaying the location of their next supposed meeting.

Urban refused to identify the Polish contact or say whether he had been arrested.