REQUEST EXPULSION OF TASS FROM HILL PRESS GALLERIES WISCONSIN NEWSMAN CITES AFFIDAVIT THAT SOVIET AGENCY IS KREMLIN ORGAN

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01314R000300600083-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 13, 2004
• Sequence Number: 83
• Publication Date: February 24, 1977
• Content Type: NSPR

ON P, G.E' /
THE GLOBE (ARLINGTON-POLITICS & RELIGION)
Approved For Releae' YMA Y2i? A-RDP88-01314R00 300600083-6
isc.o-n an Cites .-
i. r i_ r g .
If you live in the 5500 block of Ascot Court in
Arlington, or the 6200
block of Wilson Boulevard.
in Falls Church or the 6100
block of the Leesburgh-
Pike, you may be- ac-
quainted with. Leonid Bum
Viaatchoslav .Tchernychev,
or Vitaaly Garr
These gentipmen are
accredited correspondents
of 'rA''SS News Agency. I
believe I know one of them:
(although l am not at all
good with Russian names)
as the reasonably affable
man who occupied the
seat next to me at the last
three of Richard Nixon's
press conferences.
After Nixon's resignation,
I did not see him again until
the day that the Rockefeller
Commission released its CIA
Wisconsin's Madison
-Capital Journal, Stuart Dean
Levitan, has filed the follow-
ing letter with the Standing
Committee of,
Correspondents who
control the accreditation . of
journalists to the Senate and
House press galleries:.
'Valentine's Day, 1977
Dear Standing 'Com-
mittee:
Hate to cause any inter
national-incidents, but -
Do foreign press have ex-
emption to the rule ban-
ning associations . with
government agencies7- if cil of Ministers of the Standing, Committee could
not I believe the several
TASS U.S.S.R. reopen an issue that was a
reporters. should ntrov rs -of the
ma
or ca e
have their credentials
revoked, inasmuch as Am-
..defendent in a $500,000 Publishing Co. of 15511 is
libel suit - claims that it is Street in Washington. as
an organ of the Soviet ("Distribution of Invest,.
Government and thus has a meet and Economic News
right to have the suit moved Bulletins"). to a federal court. The issue of TASS cor-
TASS, along with the respondents - who afe on
Novosti Press Agency and the Kremlin's payroll - is {
the Daily World, a Com also mentioned in a Harper's I
munist Newspaper in New Magazine article corning out
York, are being sued by next week: "Whispers In
Alexander Yessenin-Volpin. Thq Press Gallery'; This ar
Dr. Yessnin-Volpin is a title tells the story of how
Russian-born professor at Consumer Reports ahd
Boston- University who Science magazines were
charges TASS and the denied access to the
.others with falsely labeling Congressional press gallery.
him mentally ill. An af-
fidavit from the Soviet am- - Historic Controversy
bassador describes TASS
as "an organ of the Coun- Levitan's letter to the
Foreign Agents Registra
tion
*hen will the KGB be in- - declared TASS to be "an
on page SQS of the
vestigatad by the. Polit- ` organ of the Council of (3 r9 report e - 0 the A the
burol"" I asked with a smile. Ministers of the U.S.S.R, torney
qu Genera/ tto. he the
first, my 'Soviet ac- Yours down the two way Congress on the Ad-
But then ee t he ?seemedsmilled stunned.
and street of detente, ministration of The
i3e :.. `-
answered ."I would not (signed) ,. Stuart Dean Foreign Agents R--agistra-
- Leon Act TAS'S is man
j
y
1950's.
For Alexander Jones,
president of . the
prestigious American
Society of Newspaper
Editors, (ASNE) demanded
that TASS be expelled
from the Correspondents
gallery in retaliation for the
jailing of A,P. reporter
wait for that/
. Levitan cloned but not car- William O a t i s in
There 'is a remote ; .. Czechoslovakia.
possibility that Messers Buz, Correspondent Levitan- respondents Buz, Bar-
Gan and Tchemychev (along attached .an Associated sukov, Gan, or Tcher- Added to Oatis im-
with Yuri Barsukov of Chevy Press story datelined New nychev. Instead, TASS is prisonment was the fact
'Chase) may be in the York, Feb. 11. This report listed only in connection that Mikhail Fedorov who
t
lt P
i
h t
M
"
or
er
e
t
he 1
noted that . IASS, --the - w
headlines shortly.
Approved For Release 2004/10/29 : CIA-RDP88-01314R000300600083-6
:cotJtrnu::~
 Approved F 2"1040i49ttlA,Qfbi3O8r~9eH 44QW3iA600083-6
as ington bureau it did not feel qualified to
in July of 1948 was dis- "move into the field of in_
covered to be an ternational diplomacy" and
gerbnauticai engineer,: voted that "the- principles
rather than a journalist. . of. a free press: can not be
upheld by' abridging
A committee of the them."
ASNE, including John Henry
of The Washington Star, fil- Editor and Publisher
ed a seven-page brief with- magazine denounced this as
the Standing Committee of "_so blatant and flagrant
C
orrespondents, which,
among other things noted:
Mernbership was limited
to '"bona fide -.cor
respondents of. repute in
their profession:
employed by any foreign
* That" the .TASS coy-::'
respondents had signed a
statement -that '7 am not.
Moscow voluntarily and to
concentrate coverage on
* The !/nice of America the . periphery of the Iron
was turned down, while' Curtain " whence reports
TASS -- the, voice of the from' refugees could be
Soviets --:= was given relayed uncensored?" ?-
access
.-The? Was -Post
* -'Representatives - of suggested on Sept. 9, 1951.
newspapers or periodicals, in an editorial entitled
published.-.by trade ."TASS MEN AS SPIES"a
associations, labor and
fraternal organizations are
5
excluded . from .,"The primary function of
membership the. grounds TA SS in this country is to
that-..,.the facilities of the report, not the news, but
press galleries,. are limited anything of advantage to
and- admission is not the Soviet
physically possible for all government.. Might it net
applicants. It is therefore be a great deal more
even more important that damaging to Soviet
there shall be . no dis- prestige for American`
crim/nation as between newspaper and wire ser-
those who are ineligible for vices to withdraw their
admission. correspondents from-
that the press should clean
its own house."
-
The Gannett News I
Bureau noted: 'A so-called it
reporter - for- TA SS in --
Canada turned up as one
of -the''key espionage i
government .or any >Washin
.. .,_...._ .~----1 _ gton.P'os
Approve
Retaliation - in Moscow? --- 'In:-Tulsa,"-the -Tribune's
editor, Jenkin Lloyd Jones,
In answer to the idea that - in an editorial entitled "The.
exclusion: of TASS might Spineless'-' Writers,i`
hinder the cause ofU.Scar described-the decision'
respondents-in Moscow, the- against expelling TASS as:
ASNE replied; ."the ques "typical -double-domed
tion of enforcement of sophistry sa 'common,
American laws and the _ among press writers in the -
rules-. and regulations of Capitol.-..A s a phony -
our legislative body-is an --newsman, Mr Federov"s
American question. our press pass violates the cor-.
action should not in any respondents own rules.,.It
way be influenced by fear. is symptomatic of the 'we-
of action that might be must-let-ourselves-be-
taken. by -other' ' walked-over-in-order-to-
governments ... if it- is shorn-our-good-will.' at--
desired to accord to- the titude of so . many
representatives of foreign Washington . c or -
governments access to the - respondents... TASS has no
Congressional. Press- more business In the
Galleries, the represen Congressional press
tatives of all governments, galleries than the Gestapo,
our own included, should or the Association of
be admitted ,.to Cooks and Bakers."
membership," CIA RDP88'-013-,- f . 00600083-6