WASHINGTON — The staged arrest and interrogation of American correspondent Nicholas Daniloff in Moscow by Soviet secret police on alleged spy charges have many of the earmarks of my own experience there nine years ago.
His arrest, like mine, occurred on Saturday, as if the Soviets believe U.S. official and unofficial reaction is muted by a weekend. Daniloff was within a week of ending a long tour in Moscow for U.S. News & World Report, much as I had been for the Los Angeles Times. We each were handed documents by Soviets and immediately seized by KGB officers, to be later accused of accepting secrets. In his case, it was maps; in mine, parapsychology research.
But Daniloff is being treated more harshly than I was. He is being kept overnight in the KGB's Lefortovo prison, while I could return to my family. His interrogation began immediately, while mine was delayed until several days after my initial arrest.
Moving faster may mean the Soviets intend to release Daniloff soon, before U.S. government machinery and Congress can crank up angrier protests and consider retaliation against Soviet journalists once the Labor Day weekend is over. But it could also mean that he is in for much more severe treatment.
Similarly, Daniloff may have been seized, as his wife has suggested, in retaliation for the arrest of a Soviet official, Gennady F. Zakharov, who is a U.N. employee, for alleged espionage in New York last month. If true, it attests to the journalist's innocence and could mean his early release, well short of a trial--provided that U.S. authorities decide to cooperate in some kind of an exchange.
But the Soviets would be thereby embarking on a new and ominous tactic of equating Soviet officials with U.S. reporters, which would add a new dimension of risk for U.S. correspondents serving in Moscow whenever any Soviet spy is caught in the West.
So far, the major difference from my case is that my arrest for receiving alleged secrets on parapsychology quickly turned out to be a transparent ploy to force me to answer questions about a leading Soviet dissident, Anatoly Shcharansky, who was spokesman for the Helsinki human rights movement, which included Jewish emigration activists. There are no signs yet that Daniloff's arrest is a ruse for going after another target.
Shcharansky, now in Israel after almost nine years in Soviet prison, had introduced me to a biophysicist named Valery G. Petukhov in 1976, about a year before our arrests. Petukhov claimed he had discovered the theoretical basis of extrasensory perception, or ESP. But his explanation, while novel, included no proof.
I wrote nothing about his claims, but suggested that if he ever proved his theory, I'd be happy to write a news story since it would be one of the amazing discoveries of the century.
A week before our scheduled departure from Moscow in June, 1977, Petukhov phoned to say he had proved his theory. I suggested we meet the following Monday, two days later. He countered that he was already across the street from our apartment complex, in front of the puppet theater on the main boulevard where we correspondents regularly and openly met with dissidents.
So I went across the street to meet him, expecting a short talk en route to a shop to buy some sour cream. I took along a glass jar to hold the sour cream which Russian groceries dispense by ladle.
But as soon as Petukhov had handed me papers, which he claimed contained his ESP experimental results, a small car raced up. Four plainclothesmen leaped out, pinned my arms and thrust me--holding the sour cream glass jar as well as the documents--into the rear seat for a breakneck ride to a police station. There, a man claiming to represent the Soviet Academy of Sciences pronounced the documents--which I had no chance to read--"state secrets."
Petukhov was later commended in a semi-public fashion--a notice on the bulletin board of his health institute and warm introductions to visiting U.S. scientists by the institute's chief--for having "unmasked" me as a spy.
But meanwhile, after several hours of questioning at the police station, the Soviets finally phoned the U.S. Embassy, and within an hour, a U.S. diplomat arrived to escort me home. We waited three days for the next shoe to drop.
The following Tuesday, the Soviet government sent a note to the embassy accusing me of "activities incompatible with his status as a journalist"--the euphemism for espionage. Soviet authorities said Daniloff was caught while "engaging in an act of espionage." The Soviets also said I could not leave the country until the matter was investigated, and I was immediately ordered to report for interrogation to Lefortovo.
Inside Lefortovo, where Daniloff is jailed, your eyes as well as ears told you it is a prison. Heavy wire mesh stretched up stairwells where normally only railings separated stairways, and an oppressive silence pervaded the huge stone building despite its thousands of occupants.
