U.S. AND SOVIET RESOLVE DISPUTE OVER SITES FOR NEW EMBASSIES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP92B01039R002204380017-1
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 23, 2016
• Document Release Date: April 23, 2013
• Sequence Number: 17
• Publication Date: October 5, 1967
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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Declassified and Approved For Release 2013/04/23: CIA-RDP92B01039R002204380017-1
WASHIYGTON, Oct. 4?The
United Sta te3 and the
Union-Alava ?finally agreed, to
end the deadlock over new em-
bassy sites here and in Mos-
cow, the State Department an-
nounced today.
In an agreement "in princi-
ple," disclosed by a depart-
ment press spokesman, the two
governments agreed Monday to
trade nearly equal parcels of
land for the construction of
new embassy buildings.
The site in Washington is a
13:acre, Federally owned hill-
top parcel overlooking the city.
Until 1965 it was occupied by
the Mount Alto Hospital of the
Veterans Administration.
Buildings on the Mount Alto
tract, including a home built
in 1901 for William Jennings
Bryant, former Secretary of
State and three times a Demo-
cratic Presidential candidate,
are now being razed by the
General Services Administra-
tion.
In return,-the Russians
agreed to turn over a 9.6..acre
tract in Moscow, just behind
the American embassy, on
Sadovaya Boulevard. The prop-
erty is in an urban development
area near the city's tallest sky-
scrapper, the headquarters of
Comecon, Russia's East Euro-
pean common market.
. Will Keep Envoy's House
In addition, the Russians
? agreed to the retention by the
United States of Spaso House,
the American Ambassador's
residence. It includes about 1.5
acres of land about a 15-minute
walk from the new embassy
office site.
The United States had also
hoped to keep its present Mos-
cow embassy building, an aging,
nine-story former apartment
.house combining office and
residence space for the em-
bassy staff. This was not in
the agreement, however.
The State Department spokes-
man, Carl Bartch, said that each
country would give the other a
long-term lease on the proper-
ties but would retain title. It
was not known whether anx
money was involved. ?
Mr. Bartch said only that
the two governments we, -c
"proceeding to work out, for-
malities for the exchange of
the properties."
The formalities include ar-
rangements for full extraterri-
torial rights on the leased land
The Moscow site was de-
scribed by persons here who
have inspected it as a block
of largely shabby, run-down
residences that will have to be
,
iscurpt 1,1e Ni.,ort Aw itc
here?.4 toad vidued at hgul
$8-milhonr-appeared to ,have
ended a long search for a new
site to replace the overcrowded
Soviet embassy at 1125 Six-
teenth Street N.W., three blocks
north of the White House. The
Mount Alto property is at 2650
Wisconsin .Avenue, N.W, on
the northern edge of the
Georgetown area.
The Sixteenth Street man-
sion was built in 1910 by Mrs.;
George M. Pullman, the sleep.),
ing car heiress, but never oc-I
cupied by her. It served as the
Czarist embassy , for several'
years before the Bolshevik Rev-
olution of 1917, and it later
housed representatives of the
Kerensky government.
The building was empty from
1.922 until 1933, when the
United States extended diplo-
matic recognition to the Soviet I
Union.
The Russians first made pub-
lic their wish to move in 1963,
when lawyers representing the
embassy and backed by the
state department sought rezon-
ing on the so-called Bonnie
Brae estate in the Chevy Chase
section of northwest Washing-
ton.
The required zoning variance
was granted by Washington of-
ficials, but residents of the
area fought the ruling in the
courts and won a reversal by
the city's Board of Zoning
Appeals.
Their complaint that a for-
eign chancery?an embassy's
office quarters?had no place
in a residential community was
instrumental in the passage by
Congress of a more restrictive
embassy zoning code in 1964.
The Mount Alto location
avoids all zoning complications.
The property was once a pri-
vate girls' school, the National
School of Domestic Arts and
Sciences, and liter a hotel,
the Mount Alto Inn. The Fed-
eral Government bought it in
1920 for $460,000 a? a hospital
for veterans of World War I.
1))
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ak. 6 11G-7 ,:-
THE NEW YORK TIMES, TI.
U .S. and Soviet Resolve P4pute
?Over itefGr MeW Linhassies
1.9 i
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JELINI ?
Declassified and Approved For Release 2013/04/23: CIA-RDP92B01039R002204380017-1