SOVIETS URGED TO LET BONNER GO

Author: By Judy Foreman Globe Staff

Date: Saturday, May 12, 1984
Page: ?????
Section: RUN OF PAPER

Bonner, 61, is believed to have suffered three recent heart attacks - in April and December 1983 and last January.

Earlier this week, she was charged with anti-Soviet agitation and has been barred from leaving Gorky, a city 250 miles east of Moscow, where her husband was banished four years ago. Sakharov reportedly began a hunger strike May 2 to pressure Soviet authorities to release his wife for treatment.

Bonner's son and daughter, who live in Newton with their families, went to New York yesterday for a press conference at the International League for Human Rights during which a telegram from 34 Nobel prize-winning scientists was released. The telegram sent yesterday to Soviet President Konstantin Chernenko sought the release of both Bonner and Sakharov for medical treatment.

In the telegram, the scientists noted that "three times, Mrs. Sakharov did in fact receive such permission and returned after treatment . . . We could not stand by silently while the life of our distinguished colleague, who has vigorously fostered world peace and made invaluable contributions to scientific progress, is in jeopardy."

In Paris, television news yesterday at noon had a French physician showing three of Bonner's electro-cardiogram tests revealing the damage from her heart attacks. Dr. Guillaume Charpentier, who studied seven of Bonner's electcro- cardiograms said her condition was worsening. The medical tests reportedly were sent to Dr. Charpentier by Bonner's daughter, Tatiana Yankelevich, via Sakharov's Paris publisher, Seuil Editions.

"It would appear this patient becomes exhausted at the slightest effort which indicates a severe cardiac weakness and bad outlook," the doctor was quoted by United Press International as saying. She should be in a situation without physical effort or stress, he added.

In a letter to his publisher, Sakharov reportedly wrote that his wife's death "would also be my own" and denounced the "hunt from all sides launched against her and the constant interference of the KGB (security police*."

In New York, Lt. Gov. Alfred B. DelBello's office has raised $3000 to send two American physicians to the Soviet Union to treat Bonner. The doctors are asking the United Nations to appeal to the Soviets to grant permission for such a trip. A spokesman for the governor said yesterday more funds would be available if necessary to send a team of technicians to perform surgery.

At the United Nations, Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar has so far declined a request to intervene in the case, but Alphons Hamer, a Dutch delegate, raised the issue in the Economic and Social Council, according to Reuters news agency.

Sakharov, a 1975 Nobel prize-winning physicist, has reportedly vowed to starve "until the end" if necessary.

Alexey Semyonov, the Sakharov's son, said yesterday from his home in Newton that he had received no information about his parents for a week. "We used to have independent sources, a lot of channels, but these are all foiled now by the KGB," Semyonov said. "Whatever phones we used to call are now disconnected or cut off. Our ways of sending letters in are also not working."

The health of both his parents is quite precarious, said Semyonov yesterday. Sakharov is on the 10th day of his hunger strike and Bonner, according to the latest information obtained by her children, was planning to begin her hunger strike on the 10th day of her husband's strike if there had been no results.

"It is not clear what is going on now . . .," said Semyonov. "We do not have any confirmation of this, though, or even of whether they are still together. The last time (when the Sakharovs went on a hunger strike in 1981 to help Semyonov's wife emigrate*, they were hospitalized."

On Thursday, Sen. Paul Tsongas and others asked Soviet Embassy officials in Washington to intervene for humanitarian reasons on behalf of the Sakharovs, but a favorable response was not expected. Tsongas and US Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) introduced a joint resolution into Congress, calling upon President Ronald Reagan to protest the Soviets' treatment of the Sakharovs.

FOREMA;05/11,17:08 BEVERI;05/13,16 B07658120