Soviets Hold Yale Professor as Spy; Brother Here Questions Charges

The Soviet Union yesterday announced the arrest of Frederick C. Barghoorn, a Yale professor, on charges of espionage. No details of the charge have been released, and U.S. embassy officials have not been permitted to see him.

Tass, the Soviet news agency, said Barghoorn was picked up "the other day." According to his itinerary, however, he was scheduled to leave Moscow for Warsaw on November 1, and so must have been arrested at least two weeks ago.

Barghoorn, a specialist in Russian affairs, was on sabbatical from Yale and was travelling alone in Russia as a tourist, gathering material for a book, when state security agents arrested him in Moscow. The Associated Press reported that the arrest "provoked astonishment in Western quarters" since Barghoorn's activities dealt primarlly with cultural affairs.

Barghoorn's brother, Elso S. Barghoorn, professor of Botany here at Harvard, said he couldn't imagine any reason for the arrest of his brother unless it was in retaliation for the arrest of three Russians Oct. 29 in Englewood, N.J. He ruled out the possibility that his brother was being held on the usual espionage charge of photographing military installations since his brother made a point of not carrying a camera while in the U.S.S.R.

The Harvard botanist said that neither he nor his mother had received any official word from the U.S. government, but that he understood efforts were being made to contact his brother.

Barghoorn, a member of Yale's political science department, was attached to the U.S. embassy from 1942 to 1947 and had traveled extensively in the country previously. Last spring, he toured Russia with a group of students.