The World: The Spies Who Are Out in the Cold

NEVER before had the British Government staged such a carefully calculated counterattack against Soviet espionage—even though in the past ten years it has expelled no fewer than 27 Russian diplomats on spying charges. But last week, reinforced with the testimony of a defecting Soviet agent who brought as a dowry a list of his country's spies in Britain, the government of Prime Minister Edward Heath ordered the largest mass expulsion of diplomats in modern history. In all, it expelled 90 Soviet officials and barred the re-entry of 15 others.

The defector—so far unnamed—was a...