Never Speak to Strangers and Other Writing from Russia and the Soviet Union - David Satter

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hoped to go to Israel.

      The sentences were later reduced to 15 years’ imprisonment after widespread international protests. In 1971, Mr. Kuznetsov’s “Prison Diaries” were published in the West. Five other Jews involved directly or indirectly in what became known as the “Leningrad Affair,” were released from prison earlier this month during the visit to the Soviet Union of a delegation of U.S. Congressmen.

      Another of those exchanged, Mr. Valentin Moroz, was a Ukrainian historian jailed in 1970 for anti-Soviet propaganda. After six years in prison, Mr. Moroz was moved to an institute of criminal psychiatry. When the move was announced, 20 U.S. Senators called on Mr. Leonid Brezhnev, the Soviet President, to allow Mr. Moroz to take up a post at Harvard University.

      The last of the exchanged dissidents was Georgi Vins, leader of a faction which broke away from the officially sanctioned Baptist Church. He was jailed for inciting Soviet citizens to illegal actions. Just as he was about to be released last month, dissident sources said he had been sent back for a long prison term in Siberia after being held for seven weeks in a Moscow jail.

      All five were convicted according to the normal operation of Soviet law and the exchange appears to mean that the long-standing subordination of the Soviet legal process to the political interests of the state can now be extended to include subordination to the desires and pressures of foreign states as well.

      The five dissidents arrived in New York, amid intense publicity but the Soviet media carried no news of the return to Moscow of Valdik Enger and Rudolf Cheryayev, the two Soviet employees of the United Nations who were sentenced to 50 years each in New Jersey last October for receiving secret naval documents from a double agent.

      It is believed that negotiations for the release of Mr. Shcharansky, and possibly Dr. Orlov, are taking place. It is speculated that a second exchange may be timed for a strategic moment to ease Senate ratification of the SALT 2 agreement.

      Most observers believe that the release of other prominent dissidents will have a good effect on U.S.-Soviet relations but this remains only one of the factors that the Soviet authorities must bear in mind.

      They may want good relations with the West, but releasing political prisoners to get it makes the consequences of dissent less frightening and affirms that the Soviet Union is not as resolute in rejecting attempts at outside interference in the legal process as it would like others to believe.

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      Tensions Between Systems Show at Summit

      The first meeting between Mr. Leonid Brezhnev, the Soviet President, and President Carder may improve the atmosphere of Soviet-U.S. relations but, in this neutral and historic Viennese setting, there is ample evidence that interaction between the American and Soviet systems does not come without strain.

      Tension derives from the fact that although the U.S. is a democracy and the Soviet Union is a dictatorship with a totalitarian structure, the Soviet leaders strive consistently to depict their country as a democracy, a feat more easily accomplished within the Soviet Union than in Vienna.

      The possibility that the U.S. Senate may refuse to ratify SALT 2 has been an important concern at the summit and when Mr. Leonid Zamyatin, chief of international information for the Communist Party Central Committee, was asked at a press conference if the ratification question had been raised in the talks, he said that it had been and was agreed to be an internal matter for each country.

      Mr. Zamyatin then added that Mr. Brezhnev expressed his hope and confidence that the Supreme Soviet, which he described as the Soviet legislature, would approve the treaty without amendments.

      The Supreme Soviet is a purely formal, powerless body which votes unanimously to approve all policies of the Communist Party leadership and when Mr. Zamyatin’s reference to it was met with laughter in the hall, he said: “I ascribe this laughter to lack of knowledge of the Soviet structure.”

      Obligations of protocol and great power equality demand that the two sides have the opportunity for an approximately equal number of press conferences, airport ceremonies and public appearances, but these activities, familiar to the Americans and to any broadly popular democratic politician, are a visible strain for the Soviet leadership.

      Mr. Brezhnev has avoided making statements in public and his public appearances, either going into the talks with President Carter or coming out of them, have been as brief as possible.

      The one-hour Press conference, at which correspondents had a chance to question Mr. Zamyatin, was at least half taken up with a lengthy description of Mr. Brezhnev’s commitment to peace and to questions by Soviet journalists, who are also Government officials, about U.S. missile deployment and NATO.

      The questions were propagandist and raised arguments that could only be answered in considerable detail. As intended, they took up time that could have been used in gaining information.

      Mr. Jody Powell, President Carter’s Press secretary, betrayed annoyance with the Soviet journalists’ questions and with statements by Mr. Zamyatin.

      Mr. Powell also reacted sarcastically to Mr. Zamyatin’s remarks about ratification.

      Bitter-Sweet Search for Ancestors in Ukraine

      The two-lane highway to Chernoble wound its way north from Kiev through small, wooden villages, past lush, green pasture land and open fields of rye. Only the occasional sand dune hinted at the nearness of the Dnieper River.

      At various times during my three years in Moscow, I considered making a trip to the formerly Jewish town of Chernoble, which my grandparents left in 1913 for the United States, but something always dissuaded me.

      The Nazis occupied Chernoble and although a great-uncle had stayed behind, I held little hope of finding anything familiar there. I also knew that the Soviet Union, except for the major cities, is a closed country and any attempt to visit an out-of-the-way place like Chernoble would be met with endless bureaucratic difficulties.

      In early May, however, my mother and sister arrived in Moscow for a month’s visit and after establishing that the area around Chernoble was officially open to foreigners, I decided to plan a trip.

      My reasons were mixed. The last letter from Shaya K., my great uncle, to his brothers arrived more than 40 years ago, but I thought it was still possible that we could learn something of his fate. I also wanted to try to understand better the traditional animosity between Ukrainians and Jews.

      The pogroms which swept the Ukraine 70 to 80 years ago ensured that millions of Jews would emigrate, that others would fervently back the 1917 revolution and that Zionism would find its base of mass support in Russia. The antagonisms of the Ukrainian farmlands affected the shape of the modern world.

      We submitted our itinerary to the Foreign Ministry 10 days in advance of our trip and it was, at first, approved. The approval was cancelled the day before our departure, however, because Yanov, a railway station six miles from Chernoble and apparently the site of the Chernoble atomic energy station, was said to be “closed.”

      Four re-routings and 36 hours later, we at last found ourselves driving north on the Kiev to Chernoble road accompanied by an Intourist driver and an official “guide” whose presence we were forced to accept and to pay for in hard currency in order to be allowed to proceed.

      The trip, however, began to seem worth the trouble. If the Ukraine had endured more than most areas due to the upheavals of the present century, there was little sign of it that sunny afternoon. Swaddled old women shooed cows off the road with rope lashes, moving them in the direction of the brick barns of nearby collective farms.

      The scenery opened into vast green plains broken only occasionally by stands of birch and pine trees, reminding one that it had once been possible to earn a living from timber in the area, as my mother’s

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