A TOURIST TRAP, SOVIET STYLE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00149R000500360026-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: April 19, 2010
• Sequence Number: 26
• Publication Date: December 10, 1965
• Content Type: NSPR

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/04/19: CIA-RDP75-00149R000500360026-3
December 10, 1965
STAT
it. Wo a ld's t ? ilea p
SOvlet Siyhce
An American, intent on visiting the So-
viet Union, might get the impression that
some tourists are more equal than others.
Ile might, for instance, have invested sev-
en cents last summer in Moscow News,
an English-language weekly, and read a
story titled No Visas Necessary." Dc-`
tailing the pleasures to be found in a tiny
Russian enclave far north on the Norwe-
gian border and in the nearby village of
Borisoglcbsk, the story quoted an ecstatic -
succession of tourists who had entered
by the only visa-free gap in the coon
try's borders:'
"We are returning home with very hap-
py memories . . we were received in a
most hospitable way... when I get home
I shall tell 'my friends about this inter-
ng trip."
But unless lie read the story's fine print,
the tourist might not have realized the in-
vitation referred only to Scandinavians.
One American who didn't make that
distinction, Newcomb Mott of Sheffield,
Mass., now has 18 months on a Soviet
work gang to ponder the logic of borders
that open for some and not for others.
Mott, on vacation in Norway, was told by
three people that he didn't need a visa to
visit Borisoglebsk and by three others
that he did. lie was over the line on the
Russian side before he could find a Soviet
official to settle the matter, and the an-
swer was 81 days in a solitary cell while
his case was investigated.
At his trial in Murmansk, the court ig-
10. nored niceties of the Jaw that even the
Soviet system recognizes-intent and mit-
igating circumstances. A prosecution" wit-
ness solemnly explained that no tourist
had ever mistakenly wandered across the
border in that area before. Then the court
refused to record for the defense a tele-
gram from the American embassy that
listed specifics of seven such cases--tour-
ists who had simply been turned around
by the Russians and ushered out.
Our State Department has protested
Mott's sentence as "extreme and harsh
. .. inconsistent with past. Soviet prac-
tice in cases of this kind." Protests and
appeals won't do much for Mott. Ile is
an example of an individual caught up in
a dispute between nations. Mott was sim-
ply bitten by the frost that has settled
over American-Soviet relations since we
started fighting for real in Vietnam.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/04/19: CIA-RDP75-00149R000500360026-3