Too Close Links

Radio Moscow last week was downright syrupy in response to Winston Churchill's call of a week before for "closer links." But in Addison Road, a quiet corner of London's fashionable Kensington district where many members of the Russian Embassy staff live in cozy proximity to some of Britain's solidest citizens, the atmosphere was less honeyed.

An unaccustomed bustle and stir could be detected in Addison Road following a peremptory summons from British Minister of State Selwyn Lloyd to the Soviets' Ambassador Jacob Malik. The Kensington neighbors soon learned the reason: on advice from MI 5, Britain's counter-espionage agency, Minister Lloyd had demanded that Soviet Embassy Air Attaches Ivan Pupyshev and Andrei Gudkov, who live with their wives and children at No. 79 Addison Road, get out of Britain within ten days.

By diplomatic custom, Lloyd was not required to give any reason, but he announced that Majors Pupyshev and Gudkov, two of the 15 military men attached to the embassy, had "abused their diplomatic status by attempting to engage in espionage." The British said that the two had not got involved in atomic matters; presumably they had tried to anticipate Churchill by establishing rather too close links with the British War Office's jet-plane and guided-missile program.

This is the second time in two years that Russian embassy aides have been charged with spying. In 1952, Second Secretary Pavel Kuznetsov was kicked out of the country for getting secret Foreign Office information from an obliging British radio operator.

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