California IN BRIEF : WESTMINSTER : FBI Ends Ad Targeting Spies

The FBI has halted its advertisement in Vietnamese-language newspapers that drew criticism from civil libertarians for asking emigres to report to the agency anyone they believed might be a spy for Hanoi. George Grotz, a spokesman for the San Francisco office of the FBI, said the ad has run the course of a two-month contract with the Westminster-based Nguoi Viet Daily and another newspaper in Houston. The FBI never intended to run the ads beyond two months, so the contracts were not renewed, Grotz said. The FBI said more than 200 people of Vietnamese descent responded to the advertisement, which appealed to newly arriving emigres to help “the government of the United States and Vietnamese exiled compatriots . . . destroy the activities, threat and intimidation . . . of the underground Communist spies.” The FBI says Vietnam is among nations that have stepped up industrial spying.