While Talking Peace

On a campaign swing through upstate New York, Vice President Richard Nixon last week dropped into a press conference the kind of privileged news scoop that drives the Democrats wild. At the time of Khrushchev's visit to the U.S. last fall, said Nixon, the FBI picked up two Soviet agents operating in Springfield, Mass.*--more proof, said he, that the U.S. has no reason to be ashamed of the U-2 flights over Russia. Nixon's headline brought Democratic outcries that he was playing politics with confidential information, but behind it, nonetheless, was still another untold story of ceaseless Soviet espionage in the U.S.

The story began early last year when a young U.S. Army veteran, touring Mexico with his wife, heard that the Russians were offering scholarships for study in Moscow, went around to the Soviet embassy to apply. His Soviet interviewer got interested when the ex-G.L, answering routine questions, indicated that he had spent part of his Army service as a cryptographer, was thoroughly familiar with U.S. code systems and cryptographic techniques. He was told he would hear from the Russians later. Back home in Springfield, Mass. last April, he was visited by one Vadim Alexandrovich Kirilyuk, who introduced himself as a member of the Trusteeship Division of the United Nations Secretariat,/- told him his scholarship application was coming along nicely. But what a shame it was, said Kirilyuk, to waste all that valuable experience in cryptography. While waiting for the scholarship, why not get a job in Washington handling codes and cryptography with one of the top U.S. security agencies? Kirilyuk came back several times, sometimes with a Russian companion, and always amiably brought the conversation around to the subject of cryptography.

Shortly after one visit, an FBI agent knocked on the door to ask some questions about Kirilyuk. The ex-G.I. and his wife, nervous anyway about the increasing baldness of the Russian proposition, told their story, then joined in arranging several more meetings with Kirilyuk, which the FBI observed. A key meeting took place Sept. 18, the day that Nikita Khrushchev was appealing for universal disarmament at the United Nations.

Secretary of State Christian Herter decided against arrest and prosecution, said Nixon, because it might embarrass Guest Khrushchev. Instead, the evidence was taken quietly to U.N. Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold. and within days Kirilyuk and his family were on their way home. There were no arrests, no speeches, no recriminations. Total score of Soviet diplomats known to have been kicked out by the U.S. in the past ten years: 15--eight from the Soviet embassy in Washington, seven from the U.N.

*Nixon originally said "in Illinois," but Massachusetts turned out to be right.

/- Members of the U.N. Secretariat can travel through the U.S. without restriction, while other Russians in the U.S.--even those in the Soviet delegation at the U.N.--are limited to specific areas.

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