U.S. Interviews Soviet Sailor to See if He Wants to Defect

A Soviet seaman who jumped ship in the Mississippi River only to be returned to his vessel because U.S. officials could not understand him was moved to a Coast Guard cutter Monday for interviews to determine whether he wants to defect.

The sailor, Miroslav Medvid, a Ukrainian, was taken aboard the cutter for the interview Monday afternoon, accompanied by “Soviet representatives” under a U.S.-Soviet agreement reached earlier in the day, State Department spokeswoman Anita Stockman said in Washington.

Also aboard were a State Department official fluent in Russian, an official of the Immigration and Nationalization Service, a U.S. physician and an interpreter, Stockman said.

President Reagan has received “rather detailed reports” about Medvid, White House spokesman Larry Speakes said.

U.S. authorities earlier boarded the Soviet vessel to meet Medvid and examine him. He was found to have an injury on his left arm, but there was no indication he was drugged, a State Department spokesman said. Still, the Americans demanded that he be “interviewed in a non-threatening environment,” the spokesman said.

On Friday, Medvid jumped from the Soviet grain ship M.V. Marshal Konyev, anchored at Belle Chasse, 10 miles downriver from New Orleans. He swam ashore but was returned screaming to the ship by Border Patrol agents who did not understand his Russian when he said he wanted to defect. The agents thought he was a stowaway.

On the way back to the ship, Medvid jumped out of the crewboat and tried to swim back to shore, but he was recaptured and held until Russian agents could retrieve him.

State Department spokesman Bernard Kalb said the Soviet ship would be permitted to leave “when we have satisfied ourselves about the individual’s intentions.”

As for Medvid, Kalb said: “When we hear the free expression (of his desires), a decision will be made as to the next step.”

A group representing Ukrainians in this country planned to meet at the White House today to discuss the Medvid case as well as the planned summit in Geneva, said Myron Wasylyk, a spokesman for the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America in Washington.