Marines Cut Tour of Duty in Sensitive Foreign Posts

The Marine Corps, in a move designed to limit the exposure of embassy guards to “hostile intelligence threats,” has decided to reduce the length of guards’ assignments in 14 cities around the world, the Pentagon said today.

Robert Sims, the Pentagon’s chief spokesman, said assignments for Marine guards in the cities--most of which are located in communist countries--will be reduced immediately from the standard 15 months to 12 months.

He acknowledged that the move is a response to the espionage scandal that has rocked the elite Marine guard force. Three enlisted men have so far been arrested or charged with espionage while working in the Soviet Union, and a fourth has been charged with improper fraternization with Russian women.

“In reviewing our procedures and having concerns about Soviet efforts to use their hostile intelligence capability and to seduce or otherwise have some way of misleading our people, we believe that one of the problems that could be associated with dealing with that hostile intelligence threat is the tour length,” Sims said.

“A slightly shorter tour length in an area where there are travel restrictions, where there is a limitation on social contact and where there is an obvious opportunity for hostile intelligence to work upon our people . . . a shorter tour length would be one way to help us cope with that intelligence threat.”

Sims said the change would apply to the U.S. Embassy in Moscow and the consulate in Leningrad, as well as to embassies or lesser diplomatic missions in the capitals of Yugoslavia, East Germany, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Poland, Yugoslavia, Lebanon, Afghanistan, China, Cuba and Nicaragua.

Sims said the change will not affect senior noncommissioned officers who command the guard detachments. Their duty tours will continue to run 18 months, he said.

The Marine Corps staffs its embassy guard units with young, single men who receive special recommendations for the job from their commanding officers. They then receive six weeks of specialized training at the Quantico, Va., Marine base.

Today’s change follows an earlier announcement by the Pentagon that the Marine Corps had ordered the start of psychological screening for all Marines recommended for the guard force.