WIFE KEPT FROM SEEING ARRESTED BRITON

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00149R000100510022-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: November 11, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 26, 1998
• Sequence Number: 22
• Publication Date: April 30, 1965
• Content Type: NSPR

THE, TIMES
Sanitized. - Approved For'I#Iease :
CPYRGHT
(London England)
APRIL 50, 1965
CPYRGHT
CPYRGHT CPYRGHT FOIAb3b
CPYRGHT
RUSSIA,ACCUSES .LECTURER OF SUBVERSIVE ACTIVITIES
WIFE KEPT' FROM SEEING ARRESTED BRITON
CPYRGHT MOSCOW, APRIL 29
Soviet security police is being held here
on a criminal charge relating to " alleged
involvement in subversive activities ", a
British Embassy official said tonight.
Embassy officials so far have not been
allowed to see the man, Mr. Gerald
Brooke, aged 26, a lecturer in Russian at
1-lolborn College of Law, Languages and
Commerce, London. His wife, Barbara;
said . tonight that' Soviet plainclothes
police questioned her for a whole night
after her husband's arrest. The Embassy
has now been Told she is free to leave.
1: WHEREABOUTS. UNKNOWN
Mrs. roo e: agea , a norarian, saiu
to reporters' that three plainclothes
policemen came to the flat where'sh and
her husband were visiting some Russians
on Sunday evening. She was taken away
to a' building somewhere in the city and
questioned all night.' She said she was
not ill-treated but she was allowed no
sleep until driven back to her hotel at
7.30 a.m. on Monday. Her interrogation
was " courteous ". ? '
Soviet police told her nothing of the
whereabouts of her husband and she
has not seen him since his arrest.
The British official said the embassy
had no details of the charge against Mr.
Brooke. " We understand that the
Soviet authorities' complaints concern
alleged involvement in subversive
activities ", he said.
Mrs. Brooke, said she had asked to
be allowed to see her husband and the
Russians told her they would consider
the question early next month.
The Soviet authorities informed the
embassy that' a meeting between Mr.
Brooke and the Consul would be con-
sidered by " the 'competent Soviet
rgans at the appropriate stage of 'the;
investigation of the criminal charge ".
Mr. Brooke was the leader of a group
of about 30 young tourists, mpst.of them
tudent teachers', of Russian,',;. who
rrived hereon April 13. Five years ago
e took a post-graduate course in philo-
ogy at Moscow University.
The rest of the group are due to' leave
or home by train tomorrow. Mrs.
rooke said she would leave by air
omorrow night.
Mrs. ? Brooke appeared deeply dis-
ressed by the ordeal she was going
hrough. She had tears in her eyes when
he spoke to reporters.
She said she did not know the Rus-
ians they were visiting on Sunday and
he declined to say how they came to call
in them. She also did not know whether
ny of the Russians had also been
rrested. She said her own interroga-
ion was conducted through an inter-
refer because she knew no Russian.
There was nb information on where
Ir. Brooke was being held. Most for-
ign prisoners are kept in the Lubyanka
rison, near the Kremlin. Since the
rrest, Mrs. Brooke has been 'staying
ith the British Consul, Miss Agnes
ood.-Reuter.
FRIENDS SURPRISED
A-man of the very greatest integrity
whose politics are .probably mildly
Labour " was the description of Mr.
Brooke given to The Times by a friend
of his in London yesterday. "He is good
at his job, a decent person. This charge
is absolutely fantastic." Surprise at his
arrest in Moscow was the immediate' re-
action of friends. and colleagues in'Lon-
don and the provinces.
Mr. Brooke and his wife,- who is a
cataloguer at present employed at the
Camden Central Library, Swiss Cottage,
have been. married for about three years.
Both come from Sheffield, where Mr.
Brooke's widowed '.mother still lives.
Born in July; 1938. he went.to London
n 1956 to start a. three-year '(course' at
he' London 'University School . of
)avonic,and East European Studies,
king a B.A.. degree in Russian ,with
honours. He spent a year in Moscow
on a British Council scholarship. From
1960 to 1961 he was at Oxford doing a
course=for a?Diploma of Education.
He "taught French and Russian at '
Hele's School, Southam, Exeter,, from
1961- to 1963, and acted as scoutmaster
of the school troop.'
In the 'middle of 1963, Mr. Brooke
took his present job at Holborn Col-
lege where he has been teacher of
Russian to other teachers, mainly froni
secondary schools and with a. command
of other languages.
The party of student-teachers past and
present at the Holborn College whop'
accompanied Mr. Brooke to Russia are
due back in time:for the, ppening of ,the
new term otl.May 3.
POSSIBLE LINK WITH
BRITISH TRIAL
ROM OUR DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENT'
The reasons for Mr. Brooke's arrest'
' emain ? pure speculation.. There are
arious possibilities to explain the Soyiet
ction, perhaps the most likely being
hat the security police are nervous at
he thought of east-west personal '
xchanges, and wish to make publicly
lear that' they have their eye closely '
pon western contacts, and that Soviet
itizens who fraternize with them do so
t their peril. The whole affair may in,
act. be a frame-up. It might be signi-
cant that he is apparently accused of
ubversive activities and not espionage.'
A possibility is that, as has seemed the?.
ase in the past, the Soviet authorities
ike to have a western subject under
rrest when an espionage trial is in pro-
ess in the west. It has been remarked ,.1
hat the arrest follows soon after the'
rrest of Frank Bossard, -who has been
tl~ mmitted' fora trial at, the' Central '+
riminal Court on charges of passing qn
overnment *nilitar ' "seerets ? ,to 'the
.ussians.
,
.
Sanitized - Approved For Release : CIA-RDP75-00149R000100510022-4