The US move came a day after Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez ordered a US military attache to leave the country and US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld likened Chavez to Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler.
'We don't like to get into tit-for-tat games like this with the Venezuelan government, but they initiated this and we were forced to respond,' US State Department spokesman McCormack told reporters.
Jenny Figueredo Frias, minister councillor at Venezuela's embassy in Washington, was given 72 hours to leave the US, McCormack said.
The move retaliated for Venezuela's decision Thursday to expel John Correa, naval attache at the US embassy in Caracas, on charges of espionage.
McCormack said he was not aware of any charges against Figueredo Frias, whom he identified as the chief of staff to Venezuela's ambassador in Washington.
The United States acted because 'the Venezuelan government declared Commander Correa persona non grata, and we felt compelled to respond,' McCormack said.
Asked about the spying charges against Correa, the spokesman would only say, 'He was performing his duties as naval attache.'
Chavez, a leftist populist whose growing influence in Latin America is viewed warily in Washington, was in Cuba on Friday to receive a prize from the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO).
Cuban President Fidel Castro, Washington's nemesis in the Americas and a Chavez friend, hugged the Venezuelan leader when he arrived at Havana's international airport.
US Ambassador to Venezuela William Brownfield said the expulsion was the first of its kind in nearly 200 years of diplomatic relations between the two countries, Bloomberg News reported.
Venezuela's deputy foreign minister Pavel Rondon called the US diplomatic retaliation 'a disproportionate measure' and alleged it breaches the Vienna Convention on the treatment of diplomats.
US-Venezuelan relations have worsened since Chavez took office in the world's fifth-largest oil-exporting nation in February 1999. Chavez says the US is plotting to overthrow his government to foil his plans of spreading socialism.
Rumsfeld voiced concern Thursday about Chavez and the recent election of leftist Bolivian president Evo Morales.
'I mean, we've got Chavez in Venezuela with a lot of oil money,' Rumsfeld told a news conference. 'He's a person who was elected legally - just as Adolf Hitler was elected legally - and then consolidated power, and now is, of course, working closely with Fidel Castro and Mr. Morales and others.'
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