ORDRE FOR SOVIET U.N. STAFF CUT LONG PLANNED, U.S. SAYS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00806R000201110021-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 21, 2010
• Sequence Number: 21
• Publication Date: March 11, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/21 : CIA-RDP90-00806R000201110021-3
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LOS ANGELES TIME
11 March 1986
Order for Soviet U.N. Staff Cut Lon U.N. Nays
By NORMAN KEMPSTER and ROBERT C. TOTH, Times Staff Writers
. WASHINGTON-The Reagan
Administration's order to cut more
than one-third of the Soviet pres-
ence at the United Nations was
made as part of a broad anti-espio-
nage program that has been in the
works for months, despite some
concern that it might reverse the
warming trend in Washington-
Moscow relations, U.S. officials said
Monday.
The action, announced Friday,
was taken at a sensitive time
because of diplomatic jockeying
over the date for the next summit
meeting between President Rea-
gan and Soviet leader Mikhail S.
Gorbachev. But officials said there
seemed to be no better time in the
foreseeable future to take such a
p?
One State Department official
said the decision already had been
postponed to avoid embarrassing
Gorbachev during the just-com-
pleted Communist Party Congress.
To have delayed further, until after
a date for the summit had been set,
would have -neant making the
move even closer to the start of the
summit, possibly at an even more
sensitive time, officials said.
"We've been working on it for a
long time," a senior White House
official said. Ideally, "it would have
been nice if we'd done it in 1981 or
1982," he said, when U.S.-Soviet
relations were at such a low point
that such a move would not have
significantly worsened them.
Nevertheless, Administration
officials, joined by non-govern-
ment specialists, said the move
against the Soviet U.N. missions
would not cause Moscow to torpedo
the summit unless it wanted to do
so anyway. Besides the Soviet
Union, the Soviet republics of Bye-
lorussia and the Ukraine each tech-
nically have their own U.N. mis-
sions.
"If Gorbachev wants to hold a
summit he 111111 there." sat
Geor a Carver, a former de ut
trector o the w o ' nos
the staff of Georgetown rivers;
t's Center for Strategic nd I q
national Studies. "If Gorbachev for
whatever reason, oesn t want to
ho T. e summit he wt ab
anything that is an v to ca
off. 11 ll it
Reagan and Gorbachev agreed
during their Geneva summit last
November to meet again this year
in the United States and next year
in the Soviet Union. Washington
wants the summit to take place in
June or July but the Soviets favor a
later date, probably September.
Gorbachev has hinted twice that
he will not set a date for the next
summit until some progress is made
at the Geneva nuclear arms control
talks. But both times, he seemed to
back away by insisting that he was
still committed to a 1986 meeting.
A former CIA official, who de-
clined to be identified by name, said
that the U.S. action might
strengthen the hand of anti-U.S.
hard-liners in the Kremlin, but he
added that the Administration had
little choice because of the long
record of espionage activities by
the Soviet missions.
Two senior Administration offi-
cials said the decision was the
result of steady spying by Soviets
at the United Nations rather than
any single recent act. They pointed
to information from defectors like
(former Soviet U.N. Official) Arka-
dy N. Shevchenko that 40% to 60%
of the Soviet personnel are profes-
siopal intelligence agents.
Dmitri Simes, a Soviet emigre on
the staff of the Carnegie Endow-
ment for World Peace, said that the
decision is justified because of So-
viet espionage activity but that it is
inconsistent with the agreement,
signed by Reagan and Gorbachev
in Geneva, to permit the Soviets to
reopen a consulate in New York. In
exchange, the United Stites will
reopen its consulate in Kiev.
"When (former President) Jim-
my Carter closed the New York
consulate, some of the personnel
were moved to the U.N. mission,"
Simes said. "Now some will move
back."
A State Department official said
that a secret National Security
Decision Document approved by
Reagan early this year called for
reductions in the Soviet delega-
tions, which total 275 people, more
than double the Chinese represen-
tation, which is the second largest
at the United Nations. Friday's
order calls on Moscow to reduce
the personnel to 170 during the
next two years, a 38 % cut.
The official said that pressure
from Congress underlined the Ad-
ministration's concern about espio-
nage, especially aimed at obtaining
information about high technology.
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