SAKHAROV LETTER TELLS OF FORCED-FEEDING

Author: By Judy Foreman, Globe Staff

Date: Monday, June 24, 1985
Page: 38
Section: NATIONAL/FOREIGN

Sakharov's son-in-law, Efrem Yankelevich, who is in Paris attempting to persuade French authorities to intervene on behalf of the Sakharovs, provided details of the letter for today's editions of the Paris newspaper Le Matin.

Alexey Semyonov, Bonner's son, provided the Globe with a copy of a translated version of the letter, which was written in November by Bonner to the couple's relatives in Newton.

Family members in Newton have been unable to contact the Sakharovs by telephone or telegraph in recent weeks. A package of birthday presents sent to Sakharov in May was returned unopened to Moscow by Bonner in June, a sign, family members say, that Sakharov may be separated from Bonner, or may be dead.

According to reports in the Washington Post and the New York Times, but which family members cannot confirm, the Sakharovs' apartment in Gorky is empty and the police guard gone.

According to Semyonov, the 7-page letter, which he and his sister, Tatyana Yankelevich, received last week at a human rights conference in Ottawa, is highly significant.

It is "the first (direct) information about what was happening in Gorky after my mother was detained there in May 1984 and my father started a hunger strike" last year to force authorities to release Bonner, who has heart problems, to the West for medical treatment, Semyonov said.

Semyonov said that the family cannot release details of how the letter finally reached them. "We have not seen the original (only the translation) but we know the source, and we trust it is authentic," he said.

The letter describes the forced hospitalization and forced-feedings last year of Sakharov who, the family believes, has nevertheless undertaken at least one more hunger strike in April and/or May this year.

In the letter, Bonner says that Sakharov was hospitalized May 11, 1984, during a hunger strike. He was fed, she writes, first intravenously, then through the nose and finally, through the mouth after his nose became obstructed.

Sakharov also apparently had a stroke that left him partially paralyzed and caused a loss of speech, Bonner writes, although she adds those functions have since returned somewhat. The Nobel Prize-winning physicist was also warned that he may have Parkinson's disease, which raises the suspicion he may have been injected with drugs, his wife writes.

Bonner also reports that doctors told Sakharov, " 'We will not kill you, but we will turn you into an invalid for the rest of your life.' "

After staying four months in the hospital, Sakharov returned to house arrest in the couple's apartment in the closed city of Gorky, according to Bonner's letter. By November, Bonner writes, Sakharov was able to walk and talk almost normally, but his hands still trembled and his jaw remained partially paralyzed.

The following are excerpts from Bonner's letter:

We are not seeing anyone, all contacts are forbidden, in the streets as well, and if somebody comes up to us the KGB immediately sends them away. Throughout this time my only contact has been with Elena Reznikova (Bonner's lawyer), when she would come to study my case both for the trial and the appeal. We do not have a typewriter or a tape recorder, or our manuscripts, or much else.

We have not been allowed to go to Moscow to get our things and our savings books so that our property has de facto if not de jure been confiscated. . .

Concerning Andrei . . . On May 7 was taken to the hospital as an emergency case. On May 11 they began force feeding - first it was done intravenously, then by a tube through his nose, then they held his nose closed and forced the liquid down through his throat, when he opened his mouth to breathe. All this caused excruciating pain. During his first intravenous force feeding he suffered an arterial spasm or a stroke and lost consciousness. . .

After Andrei regained consciousness he had difficulties walking and his hand shook that he found it difficult to write. When writing some words he repeated vowels. He would write three "u" or three "o" without realizing that he had done so.

They began to frighten Andrei by telling him that he had Parkinson's disease and that he soon would become a complete invalid.

Andrei still does exhibit some minor Parkinsonian symptoms but I believe they are a consequence of that spasm or stroke. Now Andrei is back to his usual self. Everything is normal including his perceptions, reactions and intelligence. His only remaining symptoms are a trembling of his hands and . . . of his lower jaw.

On Sept. 7, not knowing anything about me, he again began a hunger strike . . . On Sept. 8 they released him and since then he is at home. The first week he was very nervous . . . Talking about the doctors and the hospital . . . Now he is very worried about me, but generally speaking . . . If it were not for concern and longing for you . . .

FOREMA;06/21,16:02 NKELLY;06/25,12:25 SAKHAR24