U.S.-Soviet Couples Pine for Summit Aid

They were educated, attractive, upwardly mobile young women, the kind later called “yuppies,” and each had an inordinate amount of curiosity about the Soviet Union--enough to travel halfway around the world to see it firsthand.

Sandra Gubin was a Fulbright fellow with a keen interest in Soviet politics and domestic policy who went to Kiev as part of an international student exchange program. Language teacher Edith Luthi traveled to Leningrad to sharpen her skills in Russian. And Frances Pergericht was an up-and-coming Chicago attorney who thought it would be a lark to go to Moscow on vacation.

All fell in love with and married Russian men. And now, back in America, they are all separated from their husbands because Soviet authorities have steadfastly refused to allow the men to leave the Soviet Union.

On Wednesday, 59 senators and more than 130 members of the House sent letters to President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev urging that they give these special affairs of the heart a place on their upcoming summit agenda, along with arms control and other issues. The problems of the separated spouses, they say, provide an opportunity for the leaders of the world’s superpowers to prove that they are serious about improving U.S.-Soviet relations on all levels.

The three women are among about two dozen known cases of American citizens being subjected to state-imposed separation from Soviet spouses. In the past, most of these cases have been kept quiet for fear of making the Soviet government more intransigent. But now, the prospect of having Reagan put their plight before Gorbachev has caused the women to go public.

Luthi, of Holliston, Mass., said Wednesday that her husband, Michael Yurevitch Iossel, has told her, in effect: “Go for it.”

She added, “We are very hopeful.”

Each year, an estimated 60 marriages take place between U.S. and Soviet citizens, and in 90% of the cases the Soviet partner is allowed to leave the country. But in the remaining cases, officials in Washington and the separated partners alike say they are at a loss to explain why the Soviet government treats these few marriages differently.

Gubin, Luthi and Pergericht all have been permitted to visit their husbands since their marriages in the early 1980s. Luthi and Iossel have a 2 1/2-year-old son, and Pergericht, of Chicago, and her husband, Roman Kuperman, are expecting their first child next March.

Departure ‘Undesirable’

All three husbands have applied for exit visas every six months since their marriages. But in denying them permission to leave the country, the Soviets have told Iossel and Kuperman only that their departure from the Soviet Union is “undesirable.”

In the case of Gubin’s husband, Alexei Lodisev, authorities have based their refusal on national security considerations. Lodisev was enrolled in military courses required of all male students while he was a student at a Moscow institute, but his wife, of Kalamazoo, Mich., said Wednesday that he had never received a security clearance or engaged in classified work.

All three men have given up their professional positions in the hope that it might improve their chances of getting permission to leave the country.

Lodisev, a computer programmer, now has a job taping music at a studio in Kiev. Iossel guards a roller coaster in a Moscow amusement park. Kuperman has worked at a variety of menial jobs since he gave up his position as a biologist.

Apart for 30 Years

Although the cases of the three young women and their husbands are typical of the couples kept apart by the Soviet government, there are others that are perhaps more tragic: Anatole Michaelson, a former Soviet citizen who now lives in Sarasota, Fla., has not seen his wife in nearly 30 years.

But Michaelson, a retired mechanical engineer, cannot go back to Moscow because the Soviet Union regards him as a defector--a description with which he does not agree, although he acknowledges that he stayed on beyond the permitted two weeks when he went on a group vacation to Austria in 1956.

But despite 30 years of separation, he still talks with his wife on the telephone and writes to her regularly.

“This is the worst kind of torture,” he said, “because nothing can be done. If I was told what I had to do, I could do it. If they told me to walk to South America, I would do it. It would take a long time, but I would complete it.”

Some relationships, however, are unable to withstand the extraordinary pressures imposed by the separation. Gary Tellanov of Sacramento, an American who married Elana Kaplan in Moscow several years ago, has filed for divorce from his wife, who has been denied permission to join him.

Californian in Moscow

On the other hand, Michael Lavigne of Berkeley has remained in Moscow with his wife, whose 12 emigration petitions have been rejected because the father she last saw as an infant held a security clearance.

Sen. Paul Simon (D-Ill.) and Rep. Gary L. Ackerman (D-N.Y.), who drafted the letters to Reagan and Gorbachev, have scheduled a news conference for today to discuss their efforts to make the separated couples a summit topic.

“The resolution of these few cases would offer Mr. Gorbachev the opportunity to demonstrate that he is serious about improving relations,” the 59 senators said in their letter to Reagan. “We feel that the timing is right for him to make a gesture, and we urge you to place this issue on your agenda for the November summit.”

Congressional sources said they have received assurances that the State Department would recommend that the President include the cases among the human rights issues to be discussed with the Soviet leader during their meeting in Geneva on Nov. 19-20.