MOSCOW -- An American governess in the U.S. Embassy was a CIA agent who formed a religious group that equated the Soviet Union with the 'antichrist' and called for its destruction in a nuclear war, the Tass news agency said.
In a dispatch Thursday, the official news agency identified the woman as Sue Pamela Carne but give no age or hometown. The embassy said Miss Carne worked as a governess for William Plunkert, 2nd secretary in the political section.
'There was an incident involving the Soviet authorities but I cannot go into the nature of it at all,' an embassy spokesman said, adding that Miss Carne has left the Soviet Union.
Tass said Miss Carne was caught in a May 15 police raid on an illegal meeting in Kalinin of a group called 'Jehovah's Witnesses-Ilyinites.'
It said the group, formed at Miss Carne's initiative, organized 'subversive work against the U.S.S.R. under the pretext of the struggle against the antichrist.'
The agenda at the May 15 meeting included 'how to bring about sooner a world nuclear war in which the antichrist -- that is the Soviet state system -- should be destroyed,' Tass said.
Tass accused Miss Carne of using her civilian position at the embassy as a cover for the CIA. It called her 'an emissary of a clerical organization which is closely connected with the CIA and has headquarters in the United States.'
It did not further identify the organization.
According to the agency, Miss Carne distributed material to sect members that 'were meant for subsequent copying and illegal circulation among Soviet citzens.'
She also, 'without batting an eyelid,' distributed large sums of Soviet rubles to build a cooperative flat for illegal gatherings and equip it with typewriters, copiers, and tape recorders, Tass said.
Tass said Miss Carne presents no problem since she has left the Soviet Union, but said Plunkert has some explaining to do.
'How could a modest governess manage to keep in his (Plunkert's) apartment those materials that were taken from her when she was detained?' Tass asked.
'How will Mr. William Plunkert explain that he employed as a governess in his family the emissary of the notorious organization connected with the CIA?' it asked.
