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Approved For Release 2000/08/08 : CIA-RDP96-00788R001600230005-6
The Washingto
WORLD NI
Friday, May 27, 1983
Soviets Stop Building
U.S. Embassy Over Use
Of Bugging Detector
By Dusko Doder
Washington Post Foreign Service
MOSCOW, May 26-Construction of a new U.S. Em-
bassy here was halted Monday when about 300 Soviet
workers walked off their jobs after U.S. security officials
used a new machine designed to discover listening de-
vices implanted in the buildings.
U.S. officials disclosed the walkout today, saying that
the Soviet construction workers abandoned the sprawling
#$120 million project in central Moscow to protest the use
of the machine. The officials described it as an X-ray
device used for checking structural flaws in the buildings.
Well informed U.S. sources said the new device was
"designed to sweep the walls before they are sealed" to
make sure that no Soviet listening devices had been im-
planted.
The device had been cleared by Soviet authorities ear-
lier, presumably as one normally used to check on pos-
sible cracks in concrete construction works. The sources
suggested that Soviet officials ordered the walkout after
they began to suspect that the machine had a different
unction.
According to embassy officials, work on the new build-
Ings was halted when four Soviet women supervisors,
wearing red armbands to suggest they were deputized for
police duty, prevented workers from entering the fenced
site by arguing that the use of the new machine exposed
them to health hazards.
An embassy spokesman, Rick Ruth, described the in-
cident as a dispute about terms of the contract. "As far
as we are concerned," he said, "there are no health haz-
ards at the site."
Ruth, however, refused to provide other details on
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Sudice any potential court battles with the Soviet Union.
See EMBASSY, A24, Col. 3
Employe of Honkin Department Store in Akita examines debris of adver
Quake, Tidal Waves
By Tracy Dahlby
Washington Post Foreign Service
TOKYO, May 26-A powerful earthquake rocked Ja-
pan's picturesque northern coastline today, spawning
15-foot tidal waves, leaving at least 32 persons dead and
causing widespread damage over seven of the country's
prefectures.
TYThe quake, the most deadly to hit Japan in 15 years,
hit shortly after noon with its epicenter in the Sea of
Japan about 100 miles off the shore of Akita prefecture
in the country's northeastern Tohoku region and 340
miles north of Tokyo. The quake registered a magnitude
of 7.7 on the open-ended Richter scale, and left 60 per-
As aftershocks from the tremor continued to rattle the
area late into the night, Japanese television crews pro-
vid
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Approved For Release 2000/08/08 : CIA-RDP96-00788R001600230005-6
Moscow Embassy Construction Halted
EMBASSY, From A23
Asked about the discrepancy be-
tween the embassy's official position
and private accounts of the source of
Soviet anger, Ambassador Arthur
Hartman said with a smile, "It is a
contract dispute. Our contract gives
us the right to inspect, and that's
what we were doing.
American building supervisors
sald the new machine was to be used
on the site for another four weeks
and that they did not expect the So-
viet workers to return to their jobs
before June 20, when the X-ray in-
spection is to be completed.
The construction site is almost
directly behind the current U.S. Em-
bassy compound, whose 10-story
chancery building was found to have
been heavily bugged when it was
occupied in 1952.
The walkout was the most recent
snag to delay the project since the
two countries signed an agreement
on building their
new embassies
more than a decade ago. After pro-
tracted haggling over the terms, a
final agreement was signed at the
1979 Vienna summit between
Leonid Brezhnev and Jimmy Carter.
The new Soviet Embassy com-
pound on upper Wisconsin Avenue
in Washington was largely com-
pleted two years ago when Soviet
personnel moved into their housing
facilities.
"Although the cornerstone for the
new American Embassy here was
laid in 1979, the project is only
about 30 percent complete and is
~not expected to be finished until late
.1985 at the earliest, according to
U.S. construction specialists here. Its
estimated cost of $100 million has
risen by 20 percent since 1979.
The project includes an eight-sto-
ry
chancery building, originally
slated for completion this year, an
elementary school building, sports
and other recreational facilities and
housing for 134 families.
Americans here have complained
frequently about difficulties with
Soviet workers. Under the agree-
ment the United States is not al-
lowed to import foreign workers to
do the job. It is allowed to have
about 40 supervisors on the site.
The 900-by-450-foot complex is
surrounded by a wire-mesh fence
and lit by floodlights, presumably to
prevent clandestine installation of
listening devices.
Other precautions include trans-
parent pipes within sections of the
chancery building to allow security
personnel to monitor possible use of
the pipes by the Russians to sneak
in bugging devices.
The site was almost deserted to-
day, and several U.S. construction
supervisors were reported to be plan-
ning to depart for the United States
for the duration of the shutdown,
which came just as work was accel-
erated to take advantage of the mild
summer weather. For most of the
year, Moscow's harsh climate allows
for only a single shift.
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