Bonner’s Phone Call Monitored, Jammed

Soviet dissident Andrei D. Sakharov today told his wife, Yelena Bonner, that he was “more or less in a good state of health,” but their telephone call was jammed when she tried to tell him he was being filmed by hidden cameras, her daughter said.

Tatiana Yankelevich told reporters that her mother spoke for about 10 minutes to Sakharov, a physicist and human rights activist, for the first time since she left him in the closed Soviet city of Gorky to seek treatment for heart and eye ailments in the West.

She said Bonner told Sakharov that an oral surgeon had removed a tumor Wednesday from her lower lip and that the doctor believed it was benign.

Sakharov was also told that Bonner is due to have an angiogram at Massachusetts General Hospital next week before a decision is made on treating her heart ailment, she said.

“She told him she met with the prime minister of Italy and with the Pope and that she saw films (made in 1984 and 1985) shot with hidden cameras. Immediately, the interference on the line began,” Yankelevich said.

“Sakharov apparently never heard what was said, despite our repeated attempts to tell him he is being filmed by a hidden camera,” she said.

Earlier in the conversation, she said, Sakharov told Bonner that “nothing was happening, he was all right and more or less in a good state of health.”

Dr. Norman Nathanson, who removed the tumor from Bonner’s lip Wednesday, said that although he believed the tumor was benign, he sent it to New England Medical Center laboratories in Boston “just to make sure that there is no evidence of malignancy.” Results are due in a week.

Nathanson also said that Bonner, who has frequently been seen smoking cigarettes, “told me that once she’s back and settled, she’s going to quit smoking.”