TOURIST ACCUSED AS U. S. SPY TELLS OF HIS EERIE ADVENTURE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00001R000300370010-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: November 11, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 30, 1998
• Sequence Number: 10
• Publication Date: October 30, 1960
• Content Type: NSPR

V1/-kl.h.)1J
Sanitized - Approved For Release : CIA-RDP75-0
X-8 THE SUNDAY STAR
Washington, D. C., October 30, 1960
A4)f -TRIAL IN RUSSIA!
tourist A?sed.as U S. Spy
Tells of His Eerie Adventure
After passiii-g?Illfrilleieu
By 314111116414141411;iiii ,toms, and driving , through a
(An Told to Peter lisihtt.
' short stretc1 of no-man's land
Copyright, y or o we were stopped by two Rus
aeleSpaper ALA .
sian border guards in civilian
1
4X"---? clothes One of them wore a
Little more than two Weeks ago,'
I was tting in cell No. 35, military hat. , They stamped
our documents and asked us.
KGB headquarters, in Kiev,- I whether we had brought
was a Prisonet of the Soviet gifts or "American propa- ,
secret pellice, co/rvictell of any- ?.?,,"
Ing agafust Ruatia. I thdtight 6?""`""'
I would never 'see my home- We carried no Printed mat- 4
ter in our luggage, but I told
town, MY parents, or my -girl the border guard With the -
again. Ailitary hat that I had brought .
How and why / wasmrrested,?
some nylon stockings, ball
tried, and convicted, is still aLi,
point pens and similat Items
for friends I made during the
'On geptember 19, on American col- 4Moscow exhibition. He con-
lege teacher traveling through the .fiseated them immediately.
Soviet Ukraine , was convicted of What's more, he demanded
' espionage and condemned to seven that I give him the names and
years in prison. There was no felOw . addresses ' of the friends I -
American at the trial. He was not Planned to see. :I gave him MARK KAMINSKY 1
permitted contact with United States -names addresses, but wieephoto
officials. Out of jail.since Octoberj'flctitious ones, because I did
14, he is now back with his femiltInot want to make trouble for age in the neighborhood, made
and friends. The Russians suspended ..the people who had been nice friends with them, and' asked
his sentence and expelled him from to the during my previous them -to our hotel for a drink
. their Gauntry. This is his story, ,i fie ivisit.
?
After they left, we cliScovered
tells ' it in a series, of article of ? they had pilfered our room, and
which Car Searched Thoroughly taken a few shirts and othe
?
A thorough search of the car belongings they "had. a clian0
Inexplicable to thea today as it ended the border tbrmalities, to lay their hands on. But w
i
was then Here islew it started. and we drove on to vioorg %didn't really mind, and wrot
.
I am 28 years.old, single, and PrOper, some 25 miles away. off the losses to the better un
an instructor in the -Russian, Viborg is a small dusty town. derstanding between nations.
language at Purdue Universit; fit was formerly part of Fin- Our stay in Leningrad, rnor
A year ago I worked as a guide land, but was annexed by Rus. ;or less established . the pattern
at the U. S. exhibition Mos sia after World War II. Signs for the test of our motor tri
cow. I learned Russian as-ea in Finnish are .still visible through Russia. In other words
child, from .my parehts, who everywhere, even though the it was mostly uneventful. W
had come to this country long original population ' has been visited Novgorod, Moscow
before I was horn. Later I re-settled in other parts of Smolensk and Minsk. Then w
studied it in school. Russia.
An Air Force buddy of mine, We stopped at the office of
Harvey Bennett, 26, mar
riedAtourist, the official Soviet
ITzhgorod, where we planned to
drive into Czechoslovakia.
On the road we acted just
as any other tourists would. We
had come to see as much of
Russia as possible. We atolt lots
of pictures, and I kept a"diary
in whichl would jot down any-
thing of interest. I had the
vague idea, of writing a book
upon my return. I thought I
Might compare road travel in
Russia with road travel, in the
United States. Perhaps it might
have slime ;scholarly interest.
?Marty things gaught my eye: ,
The(snoveinipst f heavy trucks,
histOrical mdrannents, farmers
who were being helped in their;
work by soldiers. took snap...!
' shots of all of them and entered
the captions in my photo log,
which I kept in the back pages
of my diary.
doubled briefly back to Moscow
and continued on to the
Ukraine, where we stopped in
and from Bath. Me., shared mytravel agency, for our ration Kharkov, Kiev, Vinnitsa an
interest in- the Russian lan_coupons and instructions. but, L Finally we headed fo
Early this year, :when I.re5aiht on to Leningrad, an -
ceived a 62,009 scholarshikfteen outer six-hour drive.
When we finally made it to
the Northeratt Educatidng
Leningrad, tired of straining
Foundation .M Philescielphia??1
asked him to come along on Our: eyes through the darkness,
motor trip to the Soviet Union *e Checked into the Europa
He liked the 'icipa, and agreediflotel, which caters to foreign
On July 26, ,,we ,arrivhitourists.ed
Helsinki, Fin/and: We coritact-1 Pilfered Hotel Room
ed the car rental lageneyWhicb
had made the ' arrangementS We spent two days there. I
for our tranaportaittion. Med-Writ' contact my friends, be-
car we picked up was a'Amalrabsk I thought we might be
Russian-made "Volga," withfollowed. In-stead, Harvey a'
'plenty of space for bur lug-I met some young People of
gage. We piled our bags into
it, and headed for Viborg, the
Soviet border town.
More Military Traffic
We found that Soviet roads
carry more military traffic than
you would ordinarily see in the
States. I said so in my diary.
When I' think back, though, I
the only "military object" I
ever ;took a picture of was a ,
solitary radar installation, in I
the haze of the Russian plains
about a mile away. ?
On August 25, we hit UzhJ
gorod, tired of swallowing the
dust of western Russia, and
thirsting for the, first .glass of
pilsner, beer in Czechoslovakia.
We stayed the night at the
"Summit" hotel.
Uzhgorod, taken from Hun-
gary in 1946 by the Russians,
is now the capital of the local
,"uyest," comparable to an
American county seat.
, It is located just inside the
Sanitized - Approved For K6gtwbEVIIA-KDP (5-00001 K0003003 (0010-4
Sanitized - Approved For Release : CIA-RDP75-00001R000300370010-4
restricted frontier zone' which up In front of the headquar-
ters building.
Once inside, We were taken
te a drab room filled with the
typical musty smell of Soviet
Provincial offices, but empty
except for a row of tables. We
'were received by an officer of
the border troops, who said
he would have to prepare a
statement explaining our viola-
tion of a restricted area. He
drew up the papers, and we
signed them. Then we were
escorted back to Uzhgorod by
a young, taciturn private. The
soldier told us to wait. While
we were waiting for his return,
I went to the Intourist office
and fetched the manager, a
scraggly individual with' 'a
Simon Legree smile.
surrounds all Russia. In this
buffer zone, there are check-
points at distances of ? every 3
miles or so along the road,
where ? each traveler's doeu-
ments are thoroughly inspected.
Uzhgorod proper has no
border-crossing station, but
two such stations are located
only ti few miles out of town.
One is located near the village
of Chop, and the other one?
on the other side Of Uzhgorod?
is set in the middle of a field.
' Since our Russian itinerary
specified simply "Uzhgorod" as
the point of our leaving Soviet
territory, we didn't know which
one of 'the two ,stations we
should' head for. We therefore
told the local Intourist office
that we planned to go via Chop,
and we were informed this was Signed Second Document
all right.
d by Guard
We atikoached the first
check-poiqt Without misgivings
of any klkd. Two uniformed
border guards stepped from
their shelter and demanded
our travel documents.. From sign c-sWcind document, again
their expressions, as they stud- o the effect that we had
ied our passports, we could violated restricted territory;
see they had not dealt- withi Much to our surprise, the
many tourists before. They policeman was very friendly.
seemed undecided as to what He offered to guide us to the
to do with Us. PinallY, one or correct station. Until this mo-
them went to make a phone
ment, about two hours had
call.
In what ?teemed to be 2 elapsed while Soviet bureau-
minutes fiat, another car pulled crats passed the ball back and
up and a man in civilian forth among themselves.
clothes got mit. /One 'of the. The policeman jumped onto
guards told us he Was from the
his motorcycle and escorted us
KGB, the secret, police.
The civilian told ms that the to within sight of the border
.check-poinit we had chosen was check-point. He handed us our
not for totrists, and that we passports which had been
shouldn't be where we are. We taken from us by the KGB
explained that we had been man, waved a friendly good-
given permission by the official bye, and started driving back
travel agency. But.in spite of to town. We continued on; and
all our protestations, he in pulled up in front of the bar-
structed one of the soldiers to rier which separates Soviet
Russia from Czechoslovakia. A
I explained our difficulty,
and asked him to help us
straighten out the matter. But,
instead of doing so, the In-
tourist man brought in yet an-
other policeman?this time, a
civilian cop ? who made us
_
get into our car, and take us
to the border guard headquakr- burly soldier told us to drive
ters at Chop. to the examination pit for
The guard then climbed into cars. He also demanded our
our "Volga" and instructed Passports, and indicated we
Harvey, who was at the wheel, should carry our luggage into
to drive into town. We pulled the building. Our bags were
opened, and a hunchbacked
customs man dug through our
belongings.
He demanded all our films.
Apparently he had been, in-
formed of our previous en-
counter with' the border 'Police
and the KGB man, because he
explained that ? as 'we had
violated restricted territory?
all our film would have to be
developed.
Later, after the films were
-developed, we were told to wait
a few minutes until we could
get final clearance. The hunch-
man and five of his colleagues
went next door.
After a few minutes they all
returned, stood in front of us
in a semicircle, and glared at
us silently for an instant. Then
the hunchback said: "Because
of the material we have found
in your possession, we have
decided to give you a personal
search. Kaminsky?you follow
us."
(Next: Detention and interroga-
tion in Uzahotod.)
CPYRGHT
Sanitized - Approved For Release : CIA-RDP75-00001R000300370010-4