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December 24, 1997

Russia to Let American 'Spy' Go Home for the Holidays


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    By ALESSANDRA STANLEY

    ROSTOV, Russia -- An American technician who was arrested in Rostov nearly a month ago as a spy was given permission Tuesday to go home for the holidays, according to an executive of his company in Rostov.

    The technician, Richard Bliss, 29, an employee of Qualcomm, a San Diego-based telecommunications company hired to install a state-of-the-art telephone system in Rostov, is not entirely a free man. The Qualcomm executive, Daniel Sullivan, said that Bliss was temporarily released on Sullivan's personal assurance that he would return to Rostov on Jan. 10 to resume cooperating in the investigation.

    The unusual decision by the Federal Security Service, the intelligence service that replaced the Soviet KGB, could make Bliss the first suspected spy to be let out of the cold for Christmas.

    Representatives of the security service in Rostov and Moscow declined to comment Tuesday night. Sullivan said the move was "a positive step and we are very appreciative." He added, "Naturally, we are eager to see the matter completely resolved."

    Qualcomm sent a Learjet to Rostov to fly Bliss to London, but bad weather prevented his departure Tuesday night. Bliss declined to be interviewed Tuesday, preferring to defer comment until he is safely home in San Diego.

    His release, won by high-level pressure from the State Department, Vice President Al Gore and Congress, was a sign of how much Moscow wants to preserve good relations with Washington. But Bliss' prolonged detention in Rostov mainly signaled to American businesses that fieldwork in the Russian provinces, however lucrative and ironclad the contract, remains mined with hazards.

    Cities all over the former Soviet Union are avidly seeking ways to sidestep the country's rusting and obsolete systems and obtain the latest in telecommunications equipment.

    But beneath a gleaming veneer of fancy offices, fax machines and mobile phones lies an old system of entrenched bureaucracy and a Soviet-bred suspicion of foreigners. Bliss appears to have become entangled in a struggle between the new Russia and the old.

    Qualcomm and Elektrosvyaz, the Russian telephone company that hired the American concern, have maintained a discreet silence about the case, but others here were less tactful.

    "We ask these Westerners to come here to help us develop our communications, and then we arrest them for doing so," said Georgi Yurchenko, 52, general director of Dontelekom, a local mobile phone company. "It's absurd."

    In Moscow, U.S. Ambassador James Collins said Tuesday: "As far as I understand it, there has been no judgment made about the facts of this case. They are letting him go but I do not believe they are saying their charges are without merit." The United States has maintained Bliss' innocence.

    It remained unclear Tuesday whether Russia is really intent on pursuing the case.

    Bliss, who was held for 11 days in an isolation cell of the security service, known as the SSB, was released on Dec. 6 on the condition that he not leave Rostov, pending a full investigation. That release, like Tuesday's, suggested that the Russian authorities were not thoroughly convinced they were dealing with a dangerous spy. But intelligence officers have stoutly maintained they had "valid grounds" for starting criminal proceedings against Bliss.

    On the surface, Bliss does not appear to have the makings of an international superspy. His colleagues say he grew up in Washington state and now lives in San Diego and had never worked overseas before traveling to Russia last October. In fact, he had never gone anywhere more exotic than Mexico and Canada.

    When he was released from prison, Bliss moved into an apartment rented by Qualcomm's local project manager, Robert Holt, 26. The two men spent their time working for Bliss' release, watching videos and playing cards under round-the-clock surveillance by local intelligence officers.

    The exact basis for the espionage charges remains unclear. Bliss was accused of stealing "state secrets" while using a Global Positioning System, a device that allows receivers to pinpoint a user's location by monitoring a constellation of satellites orbiting above the earth.

    Qualcomm had signed a $5 million contract with Elektrosvyaz, the local Russian telephone company, to develop a wireless telephone system for Rostov and brought in the positioning system to determine where to place the base stations.

    Originally developed by the U.S. Defense Department, the tool is also used by map makers, oil drillers, hunters and mountain climbers.

    Shortly before his arrest on Nov. 25, Bliss was driving around Rostov in a car mounted with the device, testing the phone system.

    In a city where reporters write their articles on manual typewriters, shopkeepers tally bills with an abacus and most phones have rotary dials, blatant use of sophisticated satellite equipment alone appears to have alarmed the local authorities and led to Bliss' arrest.

    Initially, the SSB charged that he had used illegal technology to steal state secrets. Later, the charges winnowed down to the fact that Bliss had failed to obtain all the proper permits to bring the system into Russia and to use it to test the phone system.

    Sullivan, who flew to Rostov this month to assist Bliss, said that the company had registered all its equipment with customs and all other Russian authorities as their contract demanded and was cooperating fully with the investigation.

    "It is understandable that the federal authorities would want to insure the protection and security of Russian territory," he said. "But it is abundantly clear that all Richard was doing was his job."

    Bliss' Russian lawyer, Valery Petryayev, conceded that his client may have inadvertently violated some regulations. But he scoffed at the notion that Bliss was involved in espionage.

    "He wasn't hiding anything," Petryayev said. "He didn't realize how many permits he really needed. It's a minor technical violation, it's not espionage."

    Others in Rostov say that the red tape regarding advanced technology in Russia is so tangled that everyone gets tripped up by it sooner or later.

    "We always have violations," Yurchenko said plaintively. "We cannot work without violations." He added, "I myself didn't know about the permits Qualcomm failed to obtain. If I didn't know, how could they?"

    Some American businessmen in Moscow, baffled by the involvement of Russian intelligence, have speculated that Bliss might have been set up deliberately by a rival company. In Rostov, few believe the affair is so complicated.

    "The SSB made a mistake at first," Petryayev said. "Then they didn't want to admit that they had made a mistake."



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