British and Soviets Expel 22 for Spying

MOSCOW--Britain has ordered eight Soviet diplomats and three journalists out of the country for alleged espionage, and the Soviet Union has retaliated with an identical set of expulsions, the British Embassy said Sunday.

"It's a mirror-image act of retaliation," Sir Rodric Q. Braithwaite, Britain's ambassador to Moscow, said during a news conference.

Britain said its expulsions were legitimate and that the Soviet response was unjustified. The Soviet Union had no immediate comment on either set of expulsions.

On Friday, Soviet Ambassador Leonid Zamyatin was called to the British Foreign Office in London and told that 11 Soviets were being expelled for "activities incompatible with their status," a Foreign Office spokesperson said.

The spokesperson would not detail the specific allegations, but "incompatible activities" is diplomatic parlance for espionage.

The Foreign Office spokesperson, speaking anonymously in keeping with British custom, said Britain had not planned to make the expulsions public and did so only after the Soviets retaliated.

On Saturday night, Braithwaite was summoned to the Soviet Foreign Ministry and told that 11 Britons were being expelled, said the British Embassy's political counselor, Roderic Lyne.

In each case, eight diplomats and three journalists were expelled, Lyne said. Each group was given 14 days to leave the country.

In London, Sir Geoffrey Howe, Britain's foreign minister, called Britain's action "a measured action in respect of established misbehavior" and termed the Soviet response unjustified. Howe said Britain has "incontrovertible evidence" of wrongdoing by the expelled Soviets.

He also urged the Soviet Union to cease an alleged buildup of intelligence gathering in Britain, saying that was an area excluded from the general improvement in relations between the countries.

Britain's Independent Television News radio reported the Soviets, who were not identified, were caught spying on military installations.

The Britons ordered out included Embassy Second Secretary Michael Anderson; Second Secretary Adam Noble; Third Secretary Paul Sharp; Vice Consul Helen Pickering; Naval Attache Capt. Christopher Meyer; Assistant Naval Attache Lt. Cmdr. Christopher Watson; Assistant Military Attache Maj. Nigel Shakespear; and Warrant Officer Laing Purfit of the Defense Ministry staff.

Jeremy Harris of the British Broadcasting Corp., Ian Glover-James of Independent Television News and Angus Roxburgh of the Sunday Times of London also were given two weeks to leave the Soviet Union, Lyne said.

Roxburgh said he and the other British journalists were told by Braithwaite that the Kremlin had ordered them and the diplomats to leave "because we had engaged in impermissible activities."

"Needless to say, I find the accusation ludicrous, almost too silly to comment on," Roxburgh said.

BBC's deputy director-general, John Birt, said the BBC would "vigorously resist" Harris' expulsion.

Britain also declared on Friday that three former Soviet Embassy workers, who already have completed their tours, were not welcome back, Lyne said. The Soviets responded by declaring three former British Embassy staff members "persona non grata," he said.

Asked why the British government kept its expulsions quiet, the Foreign Office spokesman said, "We look at these on a case-by-case basis and in this case we decided not to initiate publicity. But obviously once [the Soviets] retaliated, it just broke."

But George Robertson, a spokeperson for the opposition Labor Party, said Britain's Conservative government had kept a "bizarre and inexplicable silence."

"The British public deserve a lot more information before they will accept that this is justified," Robertson said.