Approved For Release 2001/03/26
: CIA-RDP96-00787R000200080015-8
'
Prom News Dispatches
MOSCOW; Ju|y 12—THe Sdvitet Un-W
Ion today accused a former American i
newsman here, Robert C. Toth, of hav-
ing worked for U.S. intelligence agen-
t fi®3 nnd said that it was only due to
tuat criminal pr
,^'Viere not lodged against him,
Si ^ accusation came
In, a lengthy
^^eonunentapf ^distributed
by
the
of-
Social Soviet -news
agency,
Tass.
It
• „cam« a month after Toth, former Mos-
•; &0W.hureau chief of the Los Angeles
.primes, was seized by the KGB secu-
fv .rity police on a downtown street and
hauled away for the first session of a
total
of
hours
of
questioning
ioii'Spread over six days.
8$; in
another
incident
involving
an
M Al«^an journalist today, CBS corre-
!"
t**"
it Bernard C. Redmont and his
6-»Wesi
German
cameraman
were
ji roughed up while filming a Moscow
r
”poUce
Sarden ^
111611 questionea by
'v^0Dt
sa*d be and cameraman
Kurt Hoefle
had
been
filming
1 for
i
. -^outan hour when two unidentified
f '^^d^niy Wed to rip the camera
(ivgway, kicking Hoefle.
L.;,Uniformed and plainelothed
police
„;t»roke upthe melee and took the CBS
ymen.to a
police
station where
thev
'
questioned for about an hour.
fetfi--S0^QBi.Saldi.thfe.nalina
<IfUlit6
|orre|t”
in
their 'behavior
‘ and
&.
"turn^ the camera and
film, hut &
that
“this
is an
indication of
the difficulties of doing television in
the Soviet Union, even on an innocu-
ous subject.”
uToih
’
.wbo was
; permitted
to leave
the Soviet Union
, on June
17,
at the
fi«f
dUled e5d °f his aastgament, was
;lrst accused of collecting “secret in-
i' formation of a
political and military
character.
Later, he was told he was
being questioned as a “witness ” pre-
sumably against Anatoly Scharansky
29, a computer expert and prominent
Soviet dissident who had been under
arrest since March 16, reportedly on a
treason charge.
y on a
„+J°?ay
"s ?ass article broadened the
attack against Toth,
saying
that he
had
received
assignments
not
so
fr£m
h
m
Los Angeles primes as
from
American
special
agencies
T^
e
trW
f
t^
ir
these
^ignments’.
Toth tried to make the. acquaintance
f.
oviet ' scientists who he thought
could^ possess information of interest
t0 tJ.S. special agencies.”
Toth has denied
collecting any
se-
M^n
mati0n dur“g his three ye^
Moscow assignment and the U.S. em-
bassy said today, “We repeat what we
said
earlier — that Mr. Toth was a
“ legitimate jour-
nalistic activities.”
Asked why Soviet
authorities
are
resurrecting the
case,
the
embassy
spokesman, “declared; r “Because
he’s
safely out of the country and they can
™«r
.d
say ^ything they want to.”
IWilliam Thomas,
editor of the Los
Angeles
Times,
called
the
Tass
charges “ridiculous.”]
Tass hinted broadly that
it could
prove Toth’s connection with U.S
in-
teUigence agencies but did not state
so
flatly.
“Will not those who now
°ut
Toth’s
advocates
feel
quite ill at ease if evidence is submit-
ted/rrefntably proving the connection
ire
correspondent with
U.S. intelligence services?” Tass asked
rhetorically.
,
specifically the ClA
and
other espionage agencies, related
for ^stance to the Pentagon” as en-
gaged in
intensive subversive activi-
ues.
„ ?h®3S - embassy spokesman
here
noted that the Soviets had previously
tMed f
that they had informal
tion that would
close
the book” on
journalists
accused
of
being
CIA
agents.
A
.„^
e®
American
journalists
ac-
cused a year ago
ih' an article in the
government-controUed press of being
Son??ts demed 016 charge and thl
authorities have produced no “proof”
°f
'r
h
«!
r alIeged intelligence ties.
T
^.^etnined by the KBG on
June 11 while he was receiving an ar-
Spy s
tide on parapsychology .from
Soviet
1 scientist Valery Petukhov; who also
was taken in by the police.
Dissident sources
said today
that
Petukhov was released after spending
four days ih KGB custody.
The dissident sources said the direc-
tor of the
institute Where Petukhov
workd was summoned to the Interior
Ministry and
told to take no
action
against
him
because
he had
“helped
the KGB expose an arch-intelligence
agent
from
one
of
the
imperialist
countries.”
In other developments:
—
• Nobel Peace laureate Andrei Sak-
harov and four other dissident physi-
cists appealed to
scientists attending
an international conference near Mos-
c?
vL t0
*?k
.e up
tbe case of human
rights activist Yuri Orlov,
1who was ar-
rested last February and reportedly
faces charges of anti-Soviet slander
_ • The senior military adviser to the
Soviet U.
N. mission was
“brutally”
beaten last Thursday by two men near
his home on Manhattan’s upper east
side, according
to a
Soviet
letter of
complaint. The
Soviet note
said the
premeditated” attack caused “serious
bodily injury” to Col. Vladimir Cher-
nyshev. A
New
York
City
police
spokesman said the Soviets never re-
ported the attack and
have not
al-
lowed them to interview Chernyshev
since the deUvery of the protest note
to u.s. officials yesterday.
Approved For Release 2001/03/26
: CIA-RDP96-00787R000200080015-8
THE WASHING!
41si AMMNBRSiF,
ALLIUTIOHilBRil
4 DA
•IKCTWMIPHCESifliR
518 9th St..
BEBMuTHsin
NATIONAL BRAND:
* JABOUL
* FHEM
JT*
.'i
.
FCTATC