MOSCOW BUILDS CASE AGAINST DANILOFF

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000706630008-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 21, 2011
• Sequence Number: 8
• Publication Date: September 10, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/21: CIA-RDP90-00965R000706630008-5
NEW YORK TIMES
10 September 1986
ON PAGE _i '
Moscow Builds Case Against 1janfloff
5
By PHILIP TAUBMAN
Spedal to The New York fines
MOSCOW, Sept 9 - Nicholas S
.
Daniloff, the indicted American corre-
spondent, said today that he believed
the Soviet authorities were trying to as-
semble an espionage case against him
dating back five years.
Mr. Daniloff, who is a correspondent
of the magazine U.S. News & World Re-
port, told his wife that investigators
had been questioning him about his
work since he took up his assignment in
the. Soviet Union in 1981,
. The Government newspaper Izves-
tia, in a detailed account of the case
against Mr. Daniloff, indicated Monday
that the authorities intended to link Mr.
Daniloff to Paul M. Stombaugh, an
American diplomat who was expelled
last
Mr. Daniloff'swifea Ruth, charges,
said her
husband told her during a 90-minute
meeting at Lefortovo prison, "They are .
going back over all my journalistic ac-
tivities and building up a case."
He said he was being interrogated
four hours a day.
Danibff on Summit Prospects
Mrs. Daniloff said her husband
seemed resigned to spending time in
prison before his case was resolved.
"I think he thinks it will be a long
haul, but he thinks that things are esca-
,lating rather dangerously," she said,
'You know he would not like to am it
torpedo the summit or U.S.-Soviet rela-'
tions."
Mrs. Daniloff said her husband felt
that his case was political and that the
investigation of espionage was a for-
mality that would be used against him
only if his case was not resolved and he
was put on trial.
Mr. Daniloff, who was arrested on
Aug. 30, was indicted on Sunday.
The Government press agency Tass
said today that the United States was
trying to turn the detention of Mr.
Daniloff into an excuse not to engage in
serious arms control negotiatiaoa.
Tass said warnings by the Amer-
icans that the Daniloff case could harm
relations were a "pretext to evade, for
the umpteenth time, a discussion of
what really is the centerpiece Issue not
only of the Soviet-U.S. relationship, but
of international life in general - the
need to end the arms race."
"If Daniloff had not been caught
spying. they would have found some
other pretext," Tass said
The commentary, by Boris Sha-
bayev, a Tass analyst, said:
"Dantloff is not the first Soviet spy
se-
caught red-handed by
curity service and so it would have
been only natural for his bosses to hold
their tongues in shame to spare them-
selves more embarrassment. But they
have raised a deafening uplwith
and are threatening Moscow
.,
every kind of punishment
In a dispatch from Washington, the
press agency also quoted Senator Dave
Durenberger, a Minnesota Republican
~l who is chairman of the Senate Select
Committee on Intelligence, as having
said Sunday on the. NBC News televi=
sion program "Meet the Press" that'
American intelligence agencies were
not prohibited by law from using jour-
nalists as informants.
(On the Sunday program, Senator
Durenberger noted that central a intelligence Agency
against using journalists, but that
there was no statute prohibiting such
use. David Holliday, a spokesman for
the Senate Intelligence Committee,
said Tuesday that the C.I.A. rule
could be waived at the request of its
director, but Mr. Holliday said he
knew of no instance in which this had
happened. "I never know it to be
done," he said "This is a very strict
rule, and they adhere to it" J
Last week, President Reagan, in a
personal letter to Mikhail S. Gorba-
chev, is said to have given assurances
that Mr. Daniloff is no spy.
A spokesman of the Soviet Foreign
Ministry, Gennadi I. Gerasimov, said
today that "Soviet-American relations
should not be a hostage to the Daniloff
case," which Mr. Gerasimov said was
not important"
"If both sides were to make an effort,
it would be possible to find a solution,"
he said.
Allusion to a Proposal
He seemed to allude to a proposal he
mentioned on Monday, to the effect
that both Mr. Daniloff and Gennadi F.
Zakharov, a Soviet spy suspect in New
York, be released in the custody of
their respective ambassadors pending
trials.
Mrs. Danffoff, after having visited
her husband today, said he was looking
thin and felt isolated, spending most of
his time in an small cell
She said that investigators from the
K.G.B., the Soviet intelligence and in-
ternal security agency, had told Mr.
Daniloff that the death penalty was the
ultimate punishment for conviction on
espionage charges.
It is very nasty when you are alone
in your cell and people are talking to
you about the death penalty," she said
"He is living in a vacuum here He does
not know what is going on in the outside
world and it cairbe very frightening."
Mrs. Daniloff said that at her hus.
band's request, prism authorities had
improved his diet slightly and were al-
lowing him two hours of exercise daffy.
She said Mr. Daniloff was being
given two glasses of milk a day to go
along with the soup and buckwheat ce-
real he was receiving.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/21: CIA-RDP90-00965R000706630008-5