MOSCOW DISSIDENTS FLEE OLYMPIC GAMES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00806R000200860052-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 24, 2010
• Sequence Number: 52
• Publication Date: May 11, 1980
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/24: CIA-RDP90-00806R000200860052-8
STAT
ARTICLE APPM':L ED Y0'_t TIMES
O PAGE-," 11 ??i''VY 1C,30
Saltharov Banished to Gorky
Andrei D. Sakrarov, the human rights
COW iJ1SSJt-LN
T S
activist, was banished last January to
l-t OLYMPIC 1S Gorky, an industrial city closed to for-
eigners. His wife, Yelena Bonner, is aff-
1 lowed to make visits to Moscow but has
she-avoided directly disobeying security
- a police orders not to use her. Moscow
Many Going ~loluntaril "to Fsca @ apartment as a gathering place for con-
y y p fe.rences and meetings with foreign sup-
porters- .
Forcible Removal by Police- -' - ; RoyA- Medvedev,adissidenthistorian
who considers himself a Marxist, is also
Drunks Face Restraints"='? leaving Moscow soon for the summer, as
he-usually does, wishing like many other
activists here to avoid Dr. Sakharov's
: ? fate.
By CRAIG R. ?NFLITNEY . ? _ . + tie climate has changed," Dr.
sw+diri to n> r+~ Y.,.t ninwe Lerner said. "While our leaders were in-
MOSCOW, May 10 Widespread, terested in detente with the West, public
rumors that the authoirlttes will clear support in America and Europe-for our
Moscow of dissidents and other trouble,. cause helped us. Now, it only makes the
makers before the influx of foreign visi- Soviet authorities more determined to do
tors to the Summer Olympics are quickly as they want with us no matter what the
becoming self-fulfilling prophecies. West thinks." -
Most of the prominent dissidents not in Xopelevs to Leave for Summer
jail: or internal exile say they are plan-
ning to leave the city before the July Lev Z. Kopelev and his wife, RaissaOr-
well
19 opening ceremony. The others say they lova, writers who have incurred the
are coming under pressure atom the au- wrath of the authorities for- supporting
thorities to do likewise. Dr. Sakharov, are also leaving Moscow at
"The superintendent of our building the end of this month to spend the sum-
asked my husband and me the other day, mer in the countryside near Leningrad.
what our plans were for the'summer, ' Normally, their apartment is a gather-
said Natasha Vladimov, wife-of Georgi ing: place for tourists and intellectuals
Vladimov, the dissident writer who-is from the United States and West Germa-
also head of the Soviet secticn of Amnesty ny, where Mr. Kopelev is well known.
International, tr, int:-rnational human, This year, in the wake of Dr. Sakharov's
rights group. banishment and official sanctions
"When I told him we th ln_'t plan to go against them, Mr. Kopelev has applied
anywhere," Mrs. Vladimov said, "the su- for permission to go to West Germany in
perintendent told me: 'I think it would be answer to a long-standing ? invitation to
better for both of you to leave Moscow lecture and study in Darmstadt. Hiswiie
during the Olympiade.' " says she will join him if he gets permis-
NoPlace forUntid' Activities sign.
y Scores of other dissident figures here-
,The Soviet authorities say Moscow was human rights activists, religious figures,
chosen to host the 22d Olympic Games be- people who have applied to emigrate to
cause it is a model "Socialist city." The Israel - have been arrested and tried in
model clearly excludes untidy activities -Moscow and other Soviet cities since last
like dissent. fall. Organized dissident activity is at a
Seeing trouble ahead, many dissidents low. - ;
are not waiting for official warnings to
make-, themselves scarce during the
games. Aleksandr Y. Lerner, a longtime
activist in the Jewish emigration move-
ment, said- he would take his wife and
their Irish setter on vacation to the
Ukraine in mid-June. 'T'heir apartment in
southwest Moscow has been a place of pil-
grimage for visiting supporters from the
United States, britain and Israel.
.!!If I didn't go by myself, I'm sure the
authorities would send me away some-
where of their own choosing, and maybe I
wouldn't be able to comeback at all," he
The Soviet press, meanwhile, has been
War-,= u?covites 4nat LT, : u-n C9
an anti-Sovie provocateu s may try to
irM:a-fe as-foukfz s durusg a 07ymoici
Garries, -possibly td coilaboia'fe anti
ctents_ 'to spoil -the:magellie authorities i
tivi?h Co pr entto tie wort
__ rD`on t t Inl anyoo y`plans to try to
organize any protests or demonstrations
in Moscow during the Olympics," said
Dr. Lerner, who has been trying to emi-
grate to israel since the early 1970's.
"The people who come to enjoy the
games just wouldn't understand - it
wouldn't make us very popular."
Rumors abound that the police plan to
sweep Moscow clean of an estimated
300,000 drunks and habitual troubtemak_
era, though the former were still in abun-
dance during last week's May 1 and' ay
9 holidays here.
`Special Watch Service' -
The wife of a former official, now living
in retirement, says that a few days ago
their doorbell rang and a police auxiliary
volunteer announced: "There will be a
special watch service in our building dur-
ing the Olympiade. We want you to volun-
teer for it." -
"What 'watch set-vice?' the retired offi-
cial asked. "To see to it that people don't
get rowdy or drunk or create a bad im-
pression during the Olympics," the man
answered. -
Vladimir Voinovich, a dissident writer
who has lived quietly but in official dis-
grace in Moscow since he was expelled
from the Union of Writers in 1974, came
under pressure to get out of the country
last winter, and in April, he agreed to go.
"They told me they wanted'me out by
July 19 - before the Olympics, in other
words," he said recently. "I told them I
couldn't leave until September, but not to
worry - I'll be spending the summer far I
from Moscow," he said. "That's appar-
ently all they wanted."
Vasily Aa_ksyonov, a 47-year-old writer
who quit the-union last December after it
expelled two. younger colleagues, also de-
cided to emigrate. Friends say he has
been told he. will. allowed to go.
? Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/24: CIA-RDP90-00806R000200860052-8