Soviet Sailor Not Asking U.S. Asylum, Will Go Home

A Soviet merchant seaman, who twice jumped into the Mississippi River near New Orleans to escape his ship, Tuesday decided to return home, ending a tense, five-day confrontation between Washington and Moscow that had threatened to tarnish next month’s summit meeting.

The State Department said that the sailor, Miroslav Medvid, announced his decision to U.S. officials who interviewed him aboard a Coast Guard cutter and later at a naval hospital in the New Orleans suburb of Algiers. Before the interview, he was given extensive physical and psychological examinations by American doctors.

The State Department released this written statement signed by Medvid after the interviews: “I have decided to return to my country, the Soviet Union. I do not request asylum in the United States. I make this decision voluntarily of my own free will, after having had full opportunity to discuss my situation with officials of the United States, who made clear that I may remain in the United States if I desire. I have decided not to do so.”

The statement left unanswered, however, the question of why Medvid jumped into the river two days in a row.

Soviet Ambassador Anatoly F. Dobrynin, talking to reporters at the State Department after an hourlong meeting with Secretary of State George P. Shultz on other matters, said: “It’s settled. He’s coming home,”

Medvid jumped off a Soviet grain ship Friday and swam to shore at Belle Chasse, about 10 miles south of New Orleans. Immigration officials, unable to understand what he was saying in Russian, turned him over to Border Patrol agents who tried to return him to the ship. He jumped back into the river from the launch that was returning him to the ship but again was recaptured and turned over to the Soviets.

After his second attempt to escape, U.S. officials realized that he might be trying to defect. Under U.S. law, a person seeking political asylum must be given an opportunity to state his preference in a neutral and non-threatening environment.

Soviet authorities refused to permit Medvid to leave the ship, the 120,000-ton Marshal Koniev, until Monday night. And the United States refused to allow the ship, which was in port to pick up a shipment of grain at Reserve, La., to leave port until the case was resolved.

The State Department said that a team of six U.S. officials boarded the ship at 10:30 p.m. Friday, about seven hours after the department first learned of Medvid’s dive into the Mississippi. The Americans remained aboard the ship until Medvid was transferred to the Coast Guard cutter.

Appeared Sedated

“When U.S. officials first observed seaman Medvid, . . . they reported that he appeared to be sedated,” the State Department said. “U.S. officials next saw Medvid on Saturday . . . at which time a U.S. Navy doctor conducted a preliminary physical exam. Medvid appeared to be in generally good condition.

“During the (Saturday) exam, he stated that he wished to return to the U.S.S.R. and asked whether we had any questions for him.”

The department said its representatives, to minimize the possibility of intimidation, declined to question Medvid until he was removed from the Soviet ship Monday night. Eventually, he was questioned by State Department and immigration officials accompanied by a U.S. doctor and an interpreter.

Officials from the Soviet Embassy attended the interviews.

On board the Coast Guard cutter, Medvid appeared nauseous--Hurricane Juan was moving through the area and seas were high--so he was taken ashore and allowed to sleep at the naval hospital before further examinations.

On Tuesday, the sailor refused to answer some questions, and when he repeated his desire to return to the Soviet Union, the State Department closed the case and allowed him to return to the ship.

For a time, the incident threatened to strain U.S.-Soviet relations three weeks before President Reagan’s scheduled meeting in Geneva with Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev. But Shultz said he was determined to permit the sailor to make his own decision, regardless of superpower diplomacy.

“You have to pursue this the right way,” Shultz said. “To do anything else would be a show of undesirable weakness.”

In 1970, a Lithuanian sailor, Simas Kudirka, tried to defect by jumping onto a Coast Guard vessel off Martha’s Vineyard, but the American skipper allowed Soviet sailors to drag him back to his ship. After that incident, regulations covering the handling of potential defectors were tightened up.

The State Department said that Medvid was “questioned extensively concerning his wishes and (was) assured he would not be subject to prosecution or forced to return to the custody of Soviet authorities.”

The department said he was told that “if he chose, he could leave immediately with U.S. authorities.”

“He was alert and was determined by U.S. medical, legal and other representatives to be competent to make a decision concerning whether he wanted to remain in the U.S.,” the department said.