Spain: Embarrassed Photographers

The rumor had swirled through Madrid well before Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez confirmed it late last week: two U.S. officials were expelled from Spain earlier this month for “activities incompatible with their diplomatic status.” According to diplomats in the Spanish capital, Denis MacMahan, a political officer in the U.S. embassy, and John Massey, an official at the air base in nearby Torrejon, were discovered taking photographs of the radio antennas atop Moncloa Palace, the Prime Minister’s office and home.

Such pictures, according to electronics experts, could divulge the frequencies used for top-secret communications. The episode, which may hurt Gonzalez’s efforts to keep Spain in NATO, marked the first formal expulsion of American officials from Madrid since his country and the U.S. became allies in 1953.