Disgraced Ex-Envoy Sues for Pension

Hounded out of the Foreign Service on suspicion of being a Soviet spy, former diplomat Felix S. Bloch is suing the State Department to restore his retirement pension. Bloch, 62, suspended without pay after he was observed passing a briefcase to a Soviet agent in Paris in 1989, contends he is entitled to his pension because he was never charged or convicted of “crimes of disloyalty.” A former charge d’affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Vienna, Bloch was the target of a well-publicized FBI investigation that featured news camera crews following FBI agents who were shadowing the suspect around Washington and on a trip to New York.