        The Seattle-Post Intelligencer   Wednesday, January 23, 1992        MJL

     AMERICAN'S QUESTIONED YEARS AFTER VIETNAM WAR, SENATORS TOLD.......

_______________________
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
_______________________

   WASHINGTON --- A retired KGB general testified yesterday that his top 
 subordinate questioned American prisoners in Vietnam several years after the
 end of the Indochina war in an illfated effort to recruit them as spies.

   Although his subordinate has disputed the account, Maj.Gen. Oleg Kalugin
 told a blue-ribbon Senate committee that he could furnish documentation and
 witnesses to back up his story.

   Kalugin served with the KGB for 32 years and headed its foreign counter-
 espionage section before being stripped of his position in 1990 after the
 Soviet state began to crumble.

   Elaborating on statements he made in TV interviews earlier this month,
 Kalugin repeated claims that Soviet agent Oleg Nechiporenko interviewed at
 least three American prisoners in 1976 or 1978 to persuade them to spy for 
 the Soviets when they returned to the United States.

   The Soviet government was told by the Vietnamese that the men were eventually
 sent home, Kalugin said. But he said the spy operation "flopped" because the
 Soviets were unable to re-establish contact with the Americans after they
 re-entered the U.S. society.

   Kalugin said he did not know the men's identities, and he was unable to 
 explain how American prisoners could have returned to the United States after
 the war without drawing attention. Kalugin said he knew of no Americans who 
 were transported to the Soviet Union, despite claims to the contrary.

   Critics say Kalugin may be exaggerating his story to promote a book about
 the KGB. Nechiporenko says he never conducted the prisoner interviews des-
 cribed by Kalugin.

   Kalugin's testimony was given before a select Senate committee that is 
 conducting a two-year investigation to determine if Americans were left 
 behind in Vietnam, as many famlilies and POW activist groups contend.

   The committee has scheduled two days of hearings into the so-called 
 "Russian Connection." Two former officials from the National Security 
 Agency are expected to testify today about American prisoners who may have
 been traced to the Soviet Union after the war.

   Both Washington and Hanoi contend that all American prisoners were sent 
 home from Southeast Asia after U.S. troops withdrew in 1973. Yesterday, 
 Vietnam stressed anew that "there was no such thing as any interrogation"
 of U.S. prisoners by Soviet officials after 1973.

   The Hanoi government said a search of its records found only one contact
 between a KGB agent and an American prisoner. Nechiporenko interviewed a 
 Eugene Andre Weaver, and American of Russian descent, in January 1973, they
 said. Weaver was sent home along with other prisoners in March 1973.

