CAMBRIDGE MAN REPORTED HELD IN KABUL

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000303590011-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 23, 2010
• Sequence Number: 11
• Publication Date: March 12, 1980
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/23: CIA-RDP90-00552R000303590011-1
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THE BOSTON GLOBE
12 March 1980
Friends, busin-ess
associates say r ercha -1
was arrested Feb' 3
By Ben Barber '
Special to The Globe
A carpet merchant from Cambridge who reportedly
vanished recently in Kabul, Afghanistan, is being held
by Russian or Afghan autl}prities, according to friends
and business associates. ,
Rug dealer Charles Brockunier was arrested Feb. 23,
according to acquaintances of his who were interviewed
in Cambridge yesterday. State Department officials have
begun secretive efforts to secure his release, sources said.
A business associate of Brockunier's said -be had re
cently spoken by telephone with friends in Afghanistan
who confirmed to him "positively" that Brockunier had
been arrested, though it was not known in which jail he
was being held.
Brockunier, a 41-year-old Harvard graduate and for-
mer history teacher, was drawn to the turbulent Asian
country by his concern for Afghan friends and a desire to
purchase carpets for his Cambridge shop before national-
ization might cut off access to rug markets, they said.
Brockunier is part owner of the Turkoman Balouch Rugs ,
shop on Arrow street.
Brockunier's mother,' Barbara Brockunier of Cam-
bridge, has been contacted by the State Department, but
she said yesterday she had been asked not to comment on
what efforts were being made to free her son.
The, tall, red-bearded Brockunier left Cambridge in
late January, telling a friend that he.intended to travel {
by bus among the people, as had been his custom since he
first visited Afghanistan in 1972. He had traveled there
.every two or three months for the past three years to
supply his shop with carpets. The last trip previous to
this one was made in November, before the Soviet inva-
sion but during the troubled pro-Moscow regime of Hafi-
zullah Amin, who was killed when the Soviets invaded in
late December r-: , , .
One person associated with the rug shop, who asked
not to be identified,. said Brockunier intended to buy up
to $20,000 worth of the colorful brown. and red hand-
knotted carpets to replace stock sold during Christmas.
Don Meier, an employee at the shop and a personal
friend of Brockunier, said he had received reports from
sources in Londort that the merchant was seized at his
hotel following participation in a street demonstration
"which he may have been forced to join."
Brockunier had been staying at Kabul's Khorason Ho-
tel for nearly a month, unable to leave the capital be cause of travel restrictions and political and military un-
res t.
"Even Mike Malinowsky, who was serving as a con-
sular officer in Kabul, warned Charles not to go, saying
he didn't want any additional Americans over in Kabul
to worry about and be responsible for," said his partner.
Brockunier was described as a history teacher who
fell in love with the living history of feudal Afghanistan.
"He liked the kind of life over there - the bargaining
over cups of tea. Over here he was a lonely person." -
"I think his sense of adventure just got him in trou-
ble," said a friend of Brockunier's. "He isn't political -
he just wanted to see what was going on."
"He's been very lucky," Pergola said, visiting Af-
ghanistan every two months or so for the last year and a
half.
State Department spokesman Ron Lorton said yester-
day that Brockunier had been reported to American offi-
cials only as missing in Kabul.
"We have yet to get any information from Afghan au-
thorities about him," said Lorton. "I'm not going to oet
into a discussion of this case with someone from the
press at this stage." Lorton declined to say who had,re-
ported Brockunier missing.
Last month, during general strikes in Kabul in which
many persons were arrested and killed, the Afghan gov-
ernment announced that among those incarcerated were
,several Pakistanis and an American identified as Robert.
Lee. The Afghans accused Lee of being a CIA agent and
warned that he could be tried on espionage charges.
United Press International yesterday quoted an
'American businessman arriving in New- Delhi from Ka-
bul as saying hem witnessed the arrest of an Americdrt
and several Pakistanis. The businessman idetified the
American asa rug dealer from Bostan-and-said-he-was
arrested for taking photographs. _ - "
This raised the possibility that Brockunier, upon his
arrest, had offered up the name of Robert Lee as an alias
but the State Department denied this.
"Brockunier is' not Robert Lee to my knowledge,'
Lorton said. "I have heard this theory before, but we do
not believe they are the same person.". , _ .
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/23: CIA-RDP90-00552R000303590011-1