SOVIET TELLS OF AFGHAN EXPULSION OF U.S. DIPLOMAT

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000706820005-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 26, 2010
• Sequence Number: 5
• Publication Date: April 29, 1984
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/26: CIA-RDP90-00552R000706820005-5
ARI I CIS AFEWUM, 29 Ap- i1 19514
njE~f
Soviet Tells of Afghan Expulsion of U.S. Diplomat
speila mThe New Yorkrimes However, a detailed account appear-
MOSCOW, April 28 - The Soviet
Union has asserted that a United States
diplomat expelled two weeks ago from
Afghanistan was snared in a counterin-
telligence operation that had been
sending bogus information about Af-
ghanistan to the Central Intelligence
Agency.
When Afghanistan announced . on
April 11 that Richard S. Vandiver, a
third secretary at the. United States
Embassy in Kabul, was being expelled
for spying, the State Department' re-
jected the statement as having "no sub-
stance whatever .P -:7
ing in the Soviet Government newspa-
per Izvestia has assert ed that Mr. Van-
diver was a C.I.A. agent and that he
was duped into thinking that an Afghan
citizen recruited during a visit to the
United States was relaying valuable in-
formation about Afghanistan's guer-
rilla war, the movements of its leaders
and other matters. According to the
Soviet account, the operation passed
false information to the C.I.A. for nine
+tions." Since the Soviet military inter-
vention in Afghanistan in December.
In fact, Izvestia said, the Afghan con-
tact, identified as Abdul Majid, was a
double agent planted on the C.I.A."by
Afghanistan's security services "'to ex=
.pose the dirty face of C.I.A. provoca
ghan security services mounted the
operation against a background of in-
tensive efforts by the C.I.A. to infiltrate
the Afghan Government.
"?In recent years, the United States
special services did not ignore a single
Afghan citizen making a trip to the
United States," the paper said. "After
a period of surveillance and soundings,
a visitor would be approached with an
offer to cooperate with the C.I.A. on,
favorable terms."
Izvestia identified Mr. Majid as a
"security service operative" who
posed as a "well-placed government of-
ficial" and went to the United States
for medical treatment..T'he paper said
that on arrival in Los Angeles be was
almost immediately approached by
C.I.A. people who offered to pay his
work again," izvestia said. "He was
spirited to the C.I.A. office in Los An-
geles for a polygraph test, which failed
-to catch him off guard. He passed the
test without losing his composure and
was thereupon turned over to a certain
'John,' who made no effort to conceal
the fact that be was a professional spy
-working at the American Embassy in
Kabul."
The Soviet paper asserted that
"John," proved to be Mr. Vandiver.
Wed by photographs of Mr. Vandiver,
who appeared to be in his late 20's, and
of espionage equipment that he was
said to have passed to Mr. Majid.
According to the Soviet paper, the Af-
caught, whereupon the Soviet experts
who oversee Afghanistan's intelligence
operations could have tried to reduce
the damage by saying Mr. Majid had ',
been a double agent all along..
Photo of Vandiver Published
The Izvestia report was accompa-
Western diplomats here cautioned
against accepting the Izvestia version
at face value, saying that it -could be
part of a Soviet effort.to reco9p from
damage done by, asuccessftiti United
States infiltration of the Afghan Gov-
ernment.
The diplomats said they had no in-!
side knowledge of the affair. However,
they said it was theoretically possible
that Mr. Majid, the Afghan citizen in
the case, had been successfully re-
cruited by the C.I.A. and was later
tus has been controlled fromMoscow. ~ to spy.
The Izvestia account, published two After heart surgery, Mr. Majid was
days after the expulsion, did not say said- to have been required to make
why the Afghans.had curtailed a pur- good on the C.I.A. "investment" forth-
portedly successful counterintelligence with. "A mere two days after his dis-
operation by expelling Mr. Vandiver.. charge from the clinic, Majid was at
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/26: CIA-RDP90-00552R000706820005-5