Crackdown on Spies

By Frederick Painton

France humiliates Moscow by expelling 47 Soviet officials

It was the sheer boldness of the decision that shocked Moscow, delighted Western capitals and dramatized the dimensions of the Soviet espionage effort in Western Europe. More than three months ago, French President Franc,ois Mitterrand had been given a report by his Interior Ministry on the intensifying activities of the Soviet spy network in France. Mitterrand could have responded like his predecessor, Valery Giscard d'Estaing, with traditional French diplomatic discretion, by quietly declaring a few of the more fla grant Soviet offenders personae non gratae. Instead, in a move unprecedented for France, the President ordered the expulsion last week of 47 Soviet diplomats and other officials along with their families. Not since Britain threw out 105 Soviets twelve years ago had any Western nation inflicted such a humiliation on Soviet diplomatic personnel.

For all the wisps of mystery surrounding the affair, one thing was clear: Mitterrand was sending a message both to the Soviets and to his NATO allies, best summed up by the explanation of

Government Spokesman Max Gallo: "France has shown that she has no intention of being a soft underbelly." Said a Western Ambassador in Paris: "I think Franc,ois Mitterrand is just fed up with the brazen Soviet espionage in France." Since he came to power 23 months ago, the Socialist President has demonstrated that the presence of four Communist ministers in his government does not deter him from pursuing a tougher policy against the Soviets than his predecessors.

Among the Soviets sent packing were Nikolai Chetverikov, the third-ranking diplomat at the Soviet embassy, who was considered to be the head of all KGB activities in France; Oleg Shirokov, bureau chief of the official press agency TASS; and Vladimir Kulikovskikh, a TASS reporter. Forty of the group held diplomatic passports. Said a member of France's counterespionage agency, the Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire (DST): "Ten or 15 years ago, the Soviets instructed their young agents that France was no problem. Well, all that has changed. Now they'll have to send their best recruits."

The full impact of the unexpected presidential move was only slightly diminished by a leak that appeared in a New York Times column by William Safire before the expulsions. Since the French on the previous Thursday had informed the U.S., along with the other NATO allies, of the impending crackdown and the number of Soviet officials involved, Safire appeared to have been tipped off by a talkative U.S. official. It could hardly have been a deliberate leak aimed at forcing the French to act sooner, since the machinery for the mass ouster was already in motion by the time Safire's column appeared, but French officials did not hide their irritation at Washington's inability to keep a secret.

No sooner had the French announced the mass expulsions than speculation began to mount that Mitterrand's decision was part of a concerted Western counterespionage effort made possible by the defection of a well-placed Soviet agent. Diplomats recalled that Britain's 1971 ouster of 105 Soviet personnel was triggered by a KGB defector who fingered his former colleagues. Moreover, the French acted a week after Britain threw out two Soviet diplomats and a journalist. In Rome a month earlier, Italian police had arrested the deputy director of the Rome Aeroflot office as he was obtaining microfilmed plans of NATO military positions in northeastern Italy. The Rome manager of a Soviet petrochemical company was also seized, as paymaster of the operation. In Madrid, a member of the trade delegation at the Soviet embassy was expelled three weeks ago. Was there a connection, perhaps through revelations by Vladimir Kuzichkin, the 35-year-old senior KGB operative in Iran, who defected to Britain last fall? As a former agent in the Middle East and the Orient, Kuzichkin certainly would have had wide knowledge of Soviet espionage activities.

French, British and U.S. intelligence sources were quick to dismiss the possibility of any link between the French crackdown and expulsions elsewhere in Western Europe. French officials pointed out that the expelled Soviets had been under investigation long before Kuzichkin came in from the cold. Another hypothesis to help explain Mitterrand's move was the unresolved murder in mid-February of Lieut. Colonel Bernard Nut, a top French agent, although officials in Paris insisted that the incident was not "decisive" (see box). Analysts also rejected the theory that Mitterrand had been angered by the arrest a week earlier of a 25-year-old French archivist, Patrick Guerrier, who had been caught passing classified documents relating to French energy plans to a Soviet attache. Said a Western expert on Soviet affairs: "You don't have to look any further I than the obvious explanation. The Soviet buildup has been substantial, and the French are sick of it, just like the British " were."

Over the past decade, the KGB presence in France has mushroomed. Between 1971 and 1981, the number of Soviet citizens residing in France rose from 1,000 to 2,406, while the count of official Soviet functionaries more than tripled from 200 to 700. DST officials estimate that about one-third of the total number are full-time agents of the KGB or the GRU, the military intelligence service. Says a former French counterintelligence officer:

"We figure that one agent can recruit ten collaborators. The real danger lies in the tentacular nature of this espionage network." At the center of the network in France is the Soviet embassy, a neo-Stalinist white marble bunker located near the Bois de Boulogne. The KGB also operates out of the ambassador's downtown residence, the trade mission, the consulate, Aeroflot offices, the TASS news agency and through Soviet delegations to international organizations like UNESCO.

According to U.S. officials, Soviet intelligence has given France priority because of the country's advanced aeronautical and nuclear weapons technology, as well as its "pivotal political role" in Western Europe. Mitterrand last month was shown a report prepared by the DST that claimed that the KGB has penetrated an estimated 30% of classified French military and industrial technology. Among prime espionage targets: advanced French aircraft carriers and the Exocet air-to-surface missile. Soviet agents have been prowling naval bases like Toulon, on the Mediterranean, which houses two carriers and the nuclear submarine Rubis.

These French naval forces are assigned the mission, in case of war, of blocking Soviet access to the Mediterranean from bases in the Black Sea. The KGB is equally interested in the French development of a sophisticated, miniaturized neutron bomb and a new tactical nuclear missile called the Andes, which has a 250-mile range.

Against this background of increasingly brazen Soviet exploits, the abrupt expulsions seemed long overdue to French counterintelligence services. Former Interior Minister Raymond Marcellin revealed that in 1971, when Georges Pompidou was President, he had proposed the expulsion of 150 Soviet and East European agents, but that it was decided not to jeopardize relations with the Soviets. Under Giscard, the argument prevailed that it is better to keep spies who are already identified and known rather than throw them out and have to start anew ferreting out replacements. Accordingly, over the past 20 years France, publicly at least, had expelled only 15 Soviet officials.

Whatever the mixture of motives behind Mitterrand's decision to break with the past, the political rewards outweighed the risks. A firm show of independence never hurt any political leader, and even the center-right opposition parties were obliged to approve the President's action. As for Mitterrand's Communist allies, they were in no position to complain without appearing subservient to Moscow. From Greece, where he was visiting, Party Secretary-General Georges Marchais dismissed any thought of leaving the government over the spy affair.

Equally, Mitterrand had little to fear from the Soviets, if only because his relations with them already were chilled. The President has criticized Soviet policy in Afghanistan and Poland while supporting the controversial NATO decision to deploy medium-range U.S. missiles in Western Europe.

Taken aback by what one Moscow source described as Mitterrand's "un-French" behavior, the Soviets bitterly protested against the "arbitrary nature" of the expulsions. Though Moscow told a British diplomat and a newsman to leave, it took no immediate retaliatory action against France. Trade reprisals seemed improbable, since France already has a worsening trade deficit with the Soviet Union. Nor was it likely that Moscow would cancel imports of French machinery needed for the Soviet natural-gas pipeline project to Western Europe. The Soviets undoubtedly will find ways to make their displeasure felt, but experts do not expect anything much more serious. In Washington, London and Bonn, meanwhile, Mitterrand's challenge to the Soviet espionage buildup was warmly approved as much for its direct impact as its symbolic value. By his bold gesture, the French President reminded his allies that the Soviet threat is a reality that cannot be ignored.

--By Frederick Painton. Reported by William Blaylock and Thomas A. Sancton/Paris

With reporting by William Blaylock, Thomas A. Sancton This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.