House Rejects Measure to Force Soviets to Abandon New Embassy

The House on Tuesday turned aside an effort to force the Soviet Union to abandon its new embassy on a hilltop overlooking Washington and find a site less suited to spying.

The lawmakers voted 216 to 199 not to go along with language adopted a month ago by the Senate, which would void agreements made in 1969 and 1972 with the Soviet Union providing for construction of new embassies by both countries.

Opponents of the measure had said President Reagan would veto any bill containing the language.

The provision would have called for the United States to negotiate a new agreement forcing the Soviets to build their new embassy on a site no more than 90 feet above sea level. The new Soviet Embassy on Mt. Alto in Washington, which has not yet been fully occupied, is at an altitude of 350 feet, the second-highest spot in the city.

Efforts to kick the Soviets out of their new embassy also have been a reaction to discovery that the U.S. embassy being built in Moscow under the same agreement is permeated with sophisticated Soviet spying equipment and may have to be demolished.

Language to keep the Soviets from occupying the new embassy was included by the Senate in a defense spending bill that is the subject of a House-Senate conference to work out differences between the two measures.

Perfect Spy Site

Rep. Jim Courter (R-N.J.) called the Mt. Alto site “the most perfect location to create espionage in the city of Washington,” noting that it offers line-of-sight access to the White House, less than three miles away; the FBI, 3.5 miles away, and the Pentagon, four miles distant.

However, some security experts, including former Defense Secretary James R. Schlesinger, have said the high-elevation site offers only marginal intelligence-gathering advantages and is being overemphasized by proponents of a forced Soviet move.

Opponents of the move termed it an overreaction that would damage current efforts to reach arms control agreements with the Soviets and ignores other, more moderate avenues of dealing with the embassy problem.