Dissident Orlov, Wife Will Fly to U.S. Today, She Says

Yuri Orlov, a leading dissident who was freed from Siberian exile as part of high-level Soviet-American bargaining, will fly to the United States today, his wife said Saturday.

No other dissidents will be allowed to emigrate as a result of the bargaining, which also led to the release of American journalist Nicholas Daniloff and Soviet citizen Gennady F. Zakharov, diplomatic sources said.

Both Daniloff and Zakharov were accused of spying, but the American left the Soviet Union without being tried, while Zakharov pleaded no contest to espionage charges, was given a suspended sentence and ordered to leave the United States.

Secretary of State George P. Shultz said last week that the 62-year-old Orlov would be allowed to travel immediately to the United States, without completing the last 2 1/2 years of his sentence to exile in Siberia’s frozen wilderness. Soviet officials, denying any deal with the Americans, insisted that Orlov’s case was being handled in a routine way.

It appears that the distinguished physicist, now held here at the KGB’s Lefortovo prison where Daniloff was locked up for nearly two weeks, would depart without seeing his many friends in Moscow.

Orlov suffered from a variety of illnesses and lost all his teeth in prison camp, family friends said, although his health improved after he was exiled in Siberia where he could buy dairy products and receive food parcels.

To Join Wife at Airport

His wife, Irina, said she was told that her husband would join her 30 minutes before their Aeroflot flight takes off for New York City at 9:15 a.m. today.

She said that two of his three sons by a former marriage--Alexander and Lev--were allowed to see their father here, perhaps for the last time. Orlov almost certainly would not be allowed to return, and his sons will remain in the Soviet Union, where foreign travel is a rare privilege.

Alexander Orlov, also a physicist, told Reuters news agency that he broke the news to his father that he was being allowed to leave the country.

“He took the news calmly,” his son said. “I think he had already guessed what was happening.” Soviet officials, however, had told Orlov only that his Soviet citizenship was taken away.

Never Applied to Emigrate

Although neither Yuri Orlov nor his wife ever applied to emigrate, they were quickly granted permission to leave the country following the recent talks between Shultz and Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze.

In 1976, Orlov co-founded a group to monitor Soviet compliance with the Helsinki human rights agreements of 1975 but was soon convicted of “anti-Soviet agitation” and sentenced to seven years in prison and five years of internal exile.

Although less well-known than Anatoly Shcharansky, who was released last February after nine years in prison, Orlov played a more important role in the short-lived human rights movement here.

He was chairman of the Helsinki monitoring group and was a close associate of Andrei D. Sakharov, who was exiled to the closed city of Gorky almost seven years ago.

First Move in Crackdown

Orlov’s arrest was the first step in a Kremlin crackdown on the Helsinki group, and all but three of the original members have been jailed, exiled or expelled from the country.

Even in prison, he continued to dissent. His protests over prison conditions led to his frequent confinement in punishment cells.

Since completing a prison camp term in 1984, Orlov has been forced to live in the small village of Kobyai in the Yakutia region of eastern Siberia, one of the coldest places on Earth.

A physicist who specialized in quantum logic, Orlov tried to continue his scientific work even under the harsh conditions of exile, but he was not allowed to publish in Soviet journals.

Drew Attention in West

His outstanding reputation attracted widespread attention in the West to his case, and some scientists boycotted international conferences with Soviet colleagues in protest of Orlov’s ordeal.

To the Soviet state, however, he was engaged in fabricating slanders for foreign correspondents in an effort to undermine the Communist system.

A stocky, red-haired man who once belonged to the Communist Party, Orlov worked in a factory after high school and served in the Red Army during World War II.

His outspoken call for democratic reform in the Soviet Union, however, led to his being ousted from the party and barred from working in Moscow.

He went to the southern republic of Armenia and became a corresponding member of the Armenian Academy of Sciences. When he returned to Moscow, he became involved in dissident activity and was arrested early in 1977 on charges that led to his maximum sentence.