The Boogy-Voogist

Young Valery Alexandrovich Lysikov's ambition was to become an airplane pilot. It seemed a logical wish, since Valery's father was a lieutenant colonel in the Soviet air force. But Stern Disciplinarian Lysikov Sr. disapproved of his son's ambition, as he disapproved of almost everything else about the boy. He might have disapproved even more had he known that Valery's real wish was to become an American pilot. As a teen-ager in Stalingrad, and later in the East zone of Berlin, Valery was as devoutly pro-American as his non-proletarian father was proCommunist. He seized every opportunity to tune in secretly to broadcasts of the Voice of America and the BBC, pored over contraband U.S.-history books, and whirled in delight to the downbeat of U.S. jazz and "boogy-voogy" crying '"Ooo, San Looey" as he gyrated.

Valery, as he told it, not only resisted all efforts to make him join the official Communist youth organizations, but also joined a secret school society called "The Anarchists," whose avowed purpose was to make trouble for the Communist students. "Quite a few people my age shared our opinions," said Valery, "but you had to be careful or the security police would put you under surveillance."

Between paternal beatings and political discipline, Valery decided one day in February that he had had enough. He tried to flee to the west on a commuters' train from East Berlin, but the Communist police plucked him off and sent him back. Later, an official at the Soviet School No. i called him in and showed him a letter directed to his father, who was on a trip to Moscow. The letter advised Lt. Col. Lysikov that Valery had fallen prey to "dangerous American influences," and had been formally condemned for them by the local youth group. In the corridors after the interview, Valery heard a girl whisper that he was going to be sent back to Russia.

That afternoon Valery went "off to buy some cigarettes." threaded his way through Berlin's back alleys, stepped over the line at an unguarded point into the U.S. zone and asked for political asylum. U.S. officials took him into custody, offering to let Valery's parents come and talk to him if they wished.

Valery's shocked parents accepted and crossed into West Berlin one day last week to confront their runaway son. Valery listened skeptically to his mother's pleas and to his father's warnings of the grim fate that would await him in U.S. "concentration camps." At the end of 45 minutes, the boy, nervous and angry, stalked out of the room. Valery's mother, close to tears, asked permission to talk to her son alone. Valery came back. He was calmer then, but no less intransigent. After ten minutes, Mme. Lysikov returned to her husband. "It is no use," she said. "We may as well go home."

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