World Notes CITIZENSHIP

Mikhail Gorbachev made a gesture to right old wrongs, but he may not have impressed all the victims. By executive order last week, he restored Soviet citizenship to 23 prominent exiles and emigres who had the right stripped from them in the period from 1966 to 1988. The list includes chess champion Victor Korchnoi, scientist Yuri Orlov and Nobel laureate writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. The decision, said a Soviet official, was "a form of apology -- maybe late, but it is an apology."

It remains to be seen, however, whether Gorbachev's offer will be graciously accepted by all the exiles. While a Soviet spokesman claimed that Solzhenitsyn, 71, had agreed to take back his citizenship, the novelist's wife Natalya said, "No Soviet official has contacted us for the 16 years since my husband was exiled." She insisted that it would be more important for the Kremlin to revoke the treason charges that provoked her husband's expulsion.