Dissidents Homeward Bound, Reluctantly

By John Moody

The wife of exiled Soviet Dissident Andrei Sakharov spent her 63rd birthday surrounded by three grandchildren at Disney World in Florida, mesmerized by the fantasies conjured up in the Magic Kingdom. For the past six months, Yelena Bonner has been nurtured by her family and awed by the wonders of the U.S. She has soaked up sun in the Virgin Islands, seen Cats on Broadway and stayed up all night with her 85-year-old mother Ruth, leafing through the pages of an old family photo album. Nonetheless, says Alexei Semyonov, a son from her previous marriage, "she never really could relax. Her future in the Soviet Union was continually on her mind."

This week Bonner returns to Moscow, and then, presumably, will rejoin her husband in Gorky. Sakharov, a Nobel Peace laureate and leading human-rights activist, was abducted in 1980 from a Moscow street corner and eventually bundled off to the industrial city of Gorky. Bonner, for her part, tirelessly shuttled 250 miles to bring Sakharov food parcels, then returned to Moscow with his latest thoughts for Western journalists, who are barred from Gorky. In 1984 she was convicted of slandering the Soviet system and forced to join her husband in exile.

Last year, after Sakharov staged two hunger strikes on behalf of his ailing wife, Bonner was given permission to visit the West for medical treatment. A heartbypass operation in Boston last January was a success, and Bonner took her doctor's advice to stop smoking. Her health and political status were all important; before leaving the Soviet Union, say family members, she signed a pledge not to call press conferences while abroad. Bonner showed every intention of living up to the letter of the agreement. When she first arrived in Rome last December, she told expectant reporters, "Please excuse my silence. I have to be able to come back."

Indeed, during the first three months of her U.S. stay, Bonner resisted numerous temptations to speak out. But as time went by, she found it difficult to remain quiet. She was outraged when shown a series of five secretly recorded Soviet videotapes of herself and Sakharov that gave the impression they led a comfortable life in Gorky. And she was disturbed last February when Soviet Leader Mikhail Gorbachev told the French Communist Party newspaper that Sakharov, a nuclear physicist who helped develop the first Soviet hydrogen bomb, could never leave the country because he was still privy to state secrets. Soon afterward, at a March reception in Washington, she voiced fears that the Soviets might not allow her to rejoin Sakharov. In April she told the Overseas Press Club that the West was the victim of a "flood of disinformation" from Moscow.

In New York City last month, Bonner had a highly publicized reunion with Anatoli Shcharansky, the Soviet dissident who was released from prison earlier this year. Then, addressing members of Congress on May 21, Sakharov's 65th birthday, she warned, "In Gorky, anything can happen, and the world will never learn the truth about us." On each occasion, Semyonov insists, Bonner's public appearances were arranged for her by others. She was denied an audience with President Reagan, possibly because the Administration did not want to insult Gorbachev. Instead, National Security Adviser John Poindexter received her for a 30-min. closed-door meeting. Bonner apparently hopes to bring international pressure on the Kremlin to allow her and Sakharov to return to Moscow or leave the U.S.S.R. Says Semyonov: "She believes that whether she did or did not speak out, the Soviet authorities would do what they wanted to do." In bidding farewell to America last month, Bonner instructed her children to call her in Gorky at specified times each month.

She spent the final days before her return calling on leaders in London and Paris. "If my husband didn't remain in Gorky," she said after meeting French President Francois Mitterrand, "I would never return there." Her jitters were evidenced by a request that two U.S. Congressmen accompany her back to Moscow. Underscoring the importance of Western pressure on the Soviets, Bonner told reporters in Paris, "Nothing that you do can jeopardize us. On the contrary, every public step is useful."

Soviet authorities have been silent about Bonner's conduct. But last week for the first time, there were hints of Moscow's displeasure. Soviet Journalist Victor Louis, who often serves as an unofficial conduit for the Kremlin, said that Bonner's boldness has dimmed her chances of winning a reprieve from exile. Said Louis: "She went abroad for medical treatment, but she is seeing politicians, not doctors. Her political activities have undermined the situation. She's lost any sense of reality." After meeting briefly with Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in London, Bonner dismissed Louis' remarks as "blackmail."

The Soviets, however, may be seeing Sakharov in a different light since the nuclear accident in Chernobyl last month. "He goes shopping, and people come up and ask him if they are in danger," Louis says. "He answers calmly and objectively, as a scientist, and tells them they can eat the apples and not to worry." Sakharov may also be ready to call a truce with the Kremlin. Bonner's daughter Tatyana Yankelevich said in Paris that her stepfather had offered "to cease his public activities, and wants to return to his scientific activity."

Moscow bowed last week to pressure from the U.S. to help reunite 38 divided families. At an international conference on human rights in Bern, Soviet delegates informed their American counterparts that 117 Soviet citizens who have relatives in the U.S. would be permitted to join them. In addition, Boris Gulko, a former national chess champion who applied seven years ago to emigrate to Israel, finally received permission and flew to Vienna. Such gestures may temporarily deflect criticism of the way the Soviet Union treats dissenters. But nothing would accomplish that goal so effectively as giving Sakharov and his wife a chance to spend the rest of their lives in peace.

With reporting by James O. Jackson/Moscow and William Sonzski/Boston