Bloch Tried to Quit but U.S. Seeks Firing : Espionage: Officials express skepticism that the diplomat accused of spying for the Soviet Union will ever face criminal trial.

Felix Bloch, the veteran diplomat accused of spying for the Soviet Union, tried to resign earlier this month but the State Department decided to go ahead anyway with proceedings to fire him “on national security grounds,” it was announced Thursday.

Officials said that the department wanted to assure Bloch’s public disgrace by firing him instead of accepting his resignation. He has been suspended without pay since February.

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said that Bloch, 55, submitted his resignation July 5, four days before the scheduled start of an administrative hearing that he had demanded earlier to challenge the evidence compiled by department investigators. The hearing was subsequently canceled.

“What we’re looking at here is the completion of the process that we started in February, to terminate him . . . for national security reasons,” Boucher said.

The department’s action will not affect a parallel criminal investigation by the FBI, Boucher said. U.S. officials familiar with the criminal inquiry said they are skeptical that Bloch ever will be prosecuted.

Even if Bloch is fired instead of being permitted to quit, he may qualify for a government pension of about $56,000 a year based on his 30 years in the Foreign Service. The pension statute denies payments to persons convicted of criminal activity, but it contains no such automatic disqualification for persons fired for cause.

Boucher said that Bloch was given a summary of the evidence against him and a list of potential witnesses last March. That evidence now will be submitted to Secretary of State James A. Baker III, who will make the “thumbs up or thumbs down decision,” the spokesman added.

Under the law, there is no appeal of Baker’s decision.

Boucher said it is doubtful if the evidence against Bloch ever will be made public because much of it is classified.

Bloch was put on paid leave last summer after it was revealed that he had been photographed passing a briefcase to a KGB officer in Paris. Sources said that Bloch maintained the case contained rare postage stamps.

Bloch’s last job at the State Department was as chief of the section dealing with the European Community organization. Previously he had served as the deputy chief of the U.S. Embassy in Vienna from 1983 to 1987.

Bloch is believed to have been recruited by the KGB while serving in the U.S. Embassy in East Germany in 1974.

After news leaked out about the charges against Bloch, he came under round-the-clock surveillance by FBI agents who made no effort to keep their activities a secret. Apparently the bureau hoped that the open and obvious watch would pressure Bloch into making a confession. But it never did.

At the same time, the news media engaged in a madcap 24-hour-a-day stakeout of Bloch’s apartment in an elegant Washington neighborhood popular with diplomats. Bloch sometimes engaged in banter with reporters but he said nothing about the substance of the charges against him.

Staff writer Ronald J. Ostrow contributed to this story.