News In Brief

Soviet Journalists begin US tour - with one absence

A delegation of Soviet editors began a 10-day exchange program here without one Russian journalist who was barred becasue the State Department said he may be a spy. Alexander L. Makarov, chief editor of the North American department of Novosti Press, was denied a visa Aug. 10 for the conference between the New England Society of Newspaper Editors and a group of Soviet journalists.

State Department has in the past imposed travel restrictions on Soviet journalists in the US in retaliation for harassment of US journalists in the USSR.

The conference is intended to improve understanding between the USSR and the US.