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- WORLD, Page 61World NotesESPIONAGEYeah? Well, Take That!
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- In tit-for-tat expulsions that left officials on both sides of
- the superpower divide grumbling, the Soviets and the Americans each
- ousted a military attache on charges of espionage. The first blow
- was struck by the U.S. two weeks ago, when it expelled Lieut.
- Colonel Yuri Pakhtusov from the Soviet embassy in Washington. State
- Department and FBI officials accused Pakhtusov of having received
- classified information about computer-security programs. Pakhtusov
- allegedly got the documents from an American employee of a U.S.
- company that does business with the Government.
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- Soviet Foreign Ministry spokesman Gennadi Gerasimov denounced
- the expulsion as a "provocation" and "not in line with the spirit
- of peaceful cooperation." Five days later the Soviets responded in
- kind, ordering U.S. embassy employee Lieut. Colonel Daniel Van
- Gundy to leave Moscow. The charge: attempting to enter a closed
- area and take pictures of military facilities. As denials flew on
- both sides and the threat of further expulsions loomed, a Western
- envoy in Moscow predicted: "Relations aren't permanently hurt by
- this. It's just a shoving match."