Bonner Brands Attack on Behavior as ‘Blackmail’

Yelena Bonner, wife of dissident Soviet physicist Andrei D. Sakharov, today branded as “simple blackmail” a Soviet report that her behavior in the West had jeopardized her husband’s chances for release from internal exile.

The 63-year-old Bonner, en route back to Russia after undergoing heart surgery in the United States, said she was ready to return to internal exile in Gorky because she was anxious to see her husband but that “very little do I want to see the Soviet Union as such.”

She chatted for 30 minutes with Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher amid controversy stirred up by a report from Moscow quoting Soviet journalist Victor Louis, often a conduit for official Soviet thinking, that Sakharov’s exile could end but that “she (Bonner) is the obstacle.”

“It is not his behavior, it’s hers,” Louis said. “He wants a quiet life but she would start calling press conferences” during her travels through Europe and the United States.

With Thatcher standing by her side at the prime minister’s 10 Downing Street residence, Bonner told reporters, “This statement seems to me to be simple blackmail. They want to scare Madame Prime Minister by this statement.”

Thatcher added, “Mrs. Bonner said it was blackmail. We do not give in to blackmail.”

Sakharov, 65, has been in enforced exile in Gorky, a city off-limits to foreigners, since 1980 for his criticism of Soviet policies. Louis’ comments indicated that, but for his wife, he might be allowed to return to a comparatively freer life in Moscow.

Bonner was expected to fly to Italy for a meeting with Italian Prime Minister Bettino Craxi before returning to Russia.

In Washington, two congressmen said today that the Soviet Union has given them permission to accompany Bonner when she returns to Moscow on Monday.

Reps. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and Daniel E. Lungren (R-Long Beach) said the Soviet Union granted them visas Thursday for the trip. The two will meet Bonner in Milan, Italy, for the flight to Moscow.