U.S. Querying 10 Austrians About Bloch

U.S. investigators have asked Austrian officials and political figures, including Foreign Minister Alois Mock, to supply information about the activities of Felix S. Bloch from 1981 to 1987, when he served in Vienna, Austrian officials said Wednesday.

U.S. authorities, they said, have given the names of 10 people to Interior Minister Hans Loeschnak along with a request that they be asked to describe their relations with Bloch. They were asked specifically to describe the type of questions he asked in social settings.

All 10 are believed to have been in contact with Bloch, who is under suspicion in Washington of spying for the Soviet Union when he was the No. 2 U.S. diplomat in Vienna.

‘Very Good Job’

“These were all top people in government,” a senior official in the Foreign Ministry said. “All it shows is that Mr. Bloch did a very good job in his six years here.”

It is not clear how the request fits into the investigation of Bloch’s possible involvement in espionage activities. Bloch has not been charged with any offense, but he has been suspended from his duties in the State Department pending the outcome of the investigation by the FBI and the State Department.

“The U.S. side has asked 10 people to make an account of their relations with Bloch,” a spokesman for Mock said. “Of course, it is in our interest to cooperate with that request.”

But Interior Minister Loeschnak has not yet committed the Austrian government to giving the information to the Americans. He described it as an “internal matter.”

The Vienna newspaper Die Presse named six officials it said were on the American list, including Conservative Party leader Mock, a longtime personal friend of Bloch, and Socialist Party parliamentary leader Heinz Fisher.

Others were Peter Jankowitsch, the Socialist Party foreign policy spokesman; Heinrich Neissler, a former Cabinet minister; Manfred Scheich, a Foreign Ministry official who serves as liaison with the European Economic Community, and Eva Nowotny, a foreign policy adviser to the chancellor, the head of government.

The largely sensationalist Austrian press has been having a field day with the Bloch affair, linking the diplomat with practically every controversial event of the past decade, ranging from the 1985 sale of artillery to Iran to the controversy over President Kurt Waldheim, who is barred from the United States for his alleged role in Nazi war crimes in World War II.

The Kronen Zeitung referred to a report, substantiated in part by Austrian government officials, that Bloch had a long relationship with an unidentified Viennese woman.

The “spy’s girlfriend,” Kronen Zeitung said, has been vacationing in Egypt and will be interviewed upon her return to Austria.

The headline over the story said: “FBI Asks Austrians for Help; Spy’s Viennese Girlfriend Escapes to Egypt.”

Senior Austrian officials were informed of the Bloch investigation by U.S. Ambassador Henry A. Grunwald two weeks before it became public. Some Austrian officials said they were frustrated because the U.S. authorities have neither brought charges against Bloch nor cleared him.

‘So Many Doubts’

“The only evidence we have on our side,” one official said, “is that a U.S. ambassador walks in and says that something nasty is going on. If a U.S. ambassador says something like that, you expect something to happen. Now the whole thing seems very much in the dark. There are so many doubts about whether (Bloch) is guilty or not. The uncertainty has damaged the credibility of both the United States and Austria.”

After recent statements here by former U.S. Ambassador Helene von Damm that depicted Vienna as a hotbed of espionage, Vienna Mayor Helmut Zilk decided to fight back with a statement to the press.

“Sure,” he said, “historically Vienna is a popular place for spies. But New York has many more.”