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320 14 Accompanying Yelena Bonner Back to the USSR on September 5, 1985, Barney led a group of half a dozen members of congress to the Soviet embassy in washington to deliver a letter to Soviet officials concerning the plight of andrei Sakharov and his wife, yelena Bonner. Sakharov , a distinguished physicist who had helped develop the Soviet hydrogen bomb, a 1975 nobel Peace Prize laureate, and an outspoken dissident and victim of Soviet persecution, had worked courageously, together with his wife, for basic human rights in the Soviet Union. in 1980, after he criticized the Soviet invasion of afghanistan, Sakharov was banished without the benefit of a trial to internal exile in the remote city of Gorky, about 250 miles from moscow. Bonner was exiled to Gorky in 1984 following her conviction on charges of slander against the state for distributing anti-Soviet propaganda. on several occasions, Sakharov had gone on hunger strikes to focus attention on the urgent need for his wife to receive medical care in the west. officials at the Soviet embassy refused to accept the letter and to answer questions about whether Sakharov and Bonner were alive or dead. Barney later told reporters that before leaving, the members of the congressional delegation “made a very strong appeal” that the issue of human rights be addressed and improved and that failure in that regard would create “a very bad environment” for the upcoming summit talks. after the passage of resolutions by the house and the Senate and demonstrations of solidarity with the Sakharov family in washington and elsewhere, President ronald reagan felt compelled to put the plight of Sakharov and Bonner on the agenda for the november summit talks with the Soviet Union. Shortly before the summit, however, in the face of pressure from the west, the Soviets, in a historic act, gave permission for yelena Bonner to go to the United States to receive medical treatment. as a condition for leaving the Soviet Union, Bonner had to agree not to talk to the press. Accompanying Yelena Bonner Back to the USSR 321 That november, the sixty-two-year-old Bonner came to the United States for eye treatment and heart surgery. in January, she underwent quadruple heartbypass surgery at massachusetts General hospital in Boston and then stayed in the Boston area with her family, including her married son, alexei, her married stepdaughter, Tatiana, her grandchildren, and her mother. Bonner recuperated at the home of Tatiana and her husband, efrem yankelevich, who lived in newton in Barney’s congressional district. Barney had played an active role in condemning the treatment Sakharov and his wife had received from Soviet authorities and in pressuring the Soviet Union to allow Bonner to visit the United States for medical treatment. he met with Bonner twice during her stay in the United States and spoke with her on the telephone from time to time. Barney arranged for a “members only” meeting on march 19 where Bonner could discuss her husband’s situation with house and Senate members. he also wrote a letter to the Soviet Union, signed by nearly every member of congress, expressing support for Sakharov’s dissident efforts. in may, when it was time for Bonner to return to the Soviet Union to rejoin her husband in exile in Gorky, yankelevich asked Barney, at his mother-in-law’s request and on behalf of her family, to accompany her back to moscow. Barney agreed without hesitation. The world was still in the midst of the cold war and Barney understood that Bonner was afraid to go back alone, fearing that she might disappear after her return. The other purpose in accompanying Bonner was to demonstrate the american people’s concern for her welfare and that of her husband. The family’s fear was grounded in the fact that in 1986 mikhail Gorbachev was still evolving in his role as Soviet leader and there was no indication that under his leadership there would be any thawing in the relationship between the Soviet Union and the west. at the time, Gorbachev was considered the logical successor to nikita khrushchev and leonid Brezhnev. also, Gorbachev probably assumed Bonner would stay in the United States. “She was an old woman and had children and grandchildren here,” Barney said. neither the family nor the U.S. government had any way to know how the Soviets would respond to her returning, probably unexpectedly, to join her husband. Barney learned from Speaker Tip o’neill that...

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