Russians Arrest Jewish Physicist, Charge Him with ‘espionage for U.s.a.’

Rudolph Friedman, a Russian-Jewish scientist and professor of physics, has been arrested on a charge of “espionage” on behalf of the United States, according to information received here today from the Soviet Union.

The information was contained in an article in the Leningrad Pravda, dated December 20, received here today. According to the Leningrad organ of the local Communist Party, Professor Friedman had become friendly with an American with whom he shared admiration for abstract paintings which the two were viewing together at a Leningrad museum. (Soviet Premier Nikita S. Khrushchev recently condemned abstract art as being untrue to “Socialist realism.”) Prof. Friedman, the newspaper alleged, later tried to mail to the American some “writings in invisible ink” that dealt with Soviet defense secrets.