World : Soviet Attache Sees Plot in Ouster

MOSCOW — A Soviet military attache expelled from Washington on accusations of spying was quoted today as saying he had been the victim of a bid to undermine Soviet-U.S. relations.

“In my opinion this provocation was a warning to those citizens of the U.S. who are seeking the face of a friend on the old ‘enemy’ and are trying to move closer to the Soviet Union,” Lt. Col. Yuri Pakhtusov told the Defense Ministry newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda.

Pakhtusov, whose expulsion two weeks ago prompted Moscow to oust a U.S. military attache, denied U.S. charges that police had caught him red-handed receiving documents on how the United States protects its computer systems.