Soviets are happy to return unhappy wanderer

LITTLE DIOMEDE, Alaska (UPI) The northern lights may have seenstranger sights, but the strangest this little village ever saw wason the banks of the Bering Strait when the Soviets brought back thewanderer.

John Weymouth, 33, a tall, surly, taciturn man with blond hairand spectacles, has spent years wandering through the North and Westin search of some private dream.

Two weeks ago the dream took him out onto the ice toward theimaginary line that divides the Alaskan island of Little Diomede fromthe Soviet Union, only 2 1/2 miles away on Big Diomede. ConcernedEskimos tried to stop him, because the only other man who did thisnever came back.

But Weymouth snapped at them, told them to leave him alone anddisappeared into the fog.

The Soviets evidently found the wanderer no more agreeable, forTuesday afternoon an orange Red Army helicopter clattered into viewand landed by the village. The entire population of 135 poured out.

A stern Soviet officer in a gray greatcoat and black boots,accompanied by an interpreter who appeared to be a civilian, got offthe helicopter with Weymouth and handed him over to Thomas MenadelookJr., the town's public safety officer.

Menadelook asked the officer if it would be all right to callauthorities in Nome before signing the release papers. The officersuddenly became agitated.

"Nyet!" he barked, and the interpreter chimed in:

"If we wait any longer to give this guy to you, it's going to be10 days before we get rid of him."

Asked if he was glad to be back in the United States, Weymouthsnapped:

"No. Sorry."

Asked what he wanted to do, he said: "Keep on walking."

Weymouth said the Soviets, who maintain a military post on BigDiomede, took him into custody for violating the border.

He said the Soviets asked him a lot of questions but neverconsidered him a spy. Asked what he did while in custody, he said:"Daydream."

His release was negotiated by the State Department and theKremlin. He spent the night in jail in Nome, but he faces nocharges. Following interviews with military counterintelligence, theFBI and a psychiatrist, he was to be sent to Anchorage to catch a flight to California.

Weymouth is a nephew of San Francisco Chronicle columnist HerbCaen and the son of pianist Estelle Barrett, who sent him a planeticket home.

His mother said the wandering started three years ago. He"wandered through California," she said, and "didn't like that. Hewandered through Oregon. He didn't like that. He wandered throughWashington. He didn't like that."

He appeared in Alaska last year, carrying only a simple daypack, a tarpaulin, a sleeping bag and a .22-caliber revolver. Heworked at odd jobs in Nome to raise the money for a flight to LittleDiomede island.

After interviewing Weymouth, officials said he had intended towalk into the Soviet Union but did not know why.