Houston Chemist Defects to Moscow, Cites Persecution

An American chemist who specialized in cancer research at a Houston hospital has defected to the Soviet Union and been granted asylum, Soviet officials said Wednesday.

The official Soviet news agency Tass said Arnold Lockshin, 47, of Houston, had defected after contending that he was persecuted in the United States on political grounds. A statement from the Houston hospital said Lockshin had been dismissed.

“I am happy that this nightmare is once and for all behind me,” Tass quoted Lockshin as saying. The news agency said Lockshin contended that his telephone conversations had been bugged by U.S. officials and that they had tampered with his mail and followed him.

Tass reported that Lockshin said that he was not a Communist but that he strongly opposed what he termed “the American aggression in Vietnam.”

“In recent years we have been carrying out an active struggle against the dangerous aspects of the foreign policy of the Republican Administration--a policy whose core is counting on force,” he was quoted as saying.

Blackmail Charged

According to Tass, Lockshin charged that as a result, “We were blackmailed on the telephone, our children were threatened and we received anonymous letters in which we were accused of treachery.”

Lockshin had been employed as a pharmacologist and chemist by the Stehlin Foundation, a private organization devoted to cancer research at St. Joseph Hospital in Houston. He worked in the cancer research laboratory from July, 1980, until August, 1986, but, according to a brief hospital statement, his contract was terminated in the latter part of August because of his job performance.

According to neighbors of the family in Houston, Lockshin claimed to be a Russian Jew who had been born in China, and his wife said she was a Protestant who had converted to Judaism.

“This thing was a real bolt out of the blue to us; it was a total shock,” said neighbor Joe Redden. “It was especially strange because most Jews are trying to get out of Russia, not in.”

Northern California Kin

Neighbors said the Lockshins were members of the Jewish Community Center, an organization that is active in sponsoring Russian-Jewish refugees. They said also that Lockshin’s Russian-speaking father reportedly lived in Northern California.

Lockshin was shown on Moscow’s main televised evening news program surrounded by his wife, Loreen, two sons and a daughter, and he told an interviewer, “We thought this was a place where we could raise our children without harassment.”

Tass also reported that Lockshin said, “Although the decision to leave our homeland was difficult, Loreen and I came to the conclusion that we had no other way out.”

A Reagan Administration source said that Lockshin had not formally renounced his citizenship and that he would not be considered a defector until he did so.

“We’re unaware that he has renounced his American citizenship,” the source said, adding that the State Department is continuing to look into the matter.

Tass said that Lockshin had worked at USC and Harvard University. However, records kept by various departments at USC and the Los Angeles County/USC Medical Center do not show anyone by that name.

Ruth Perez, a faculty records clerk at the USC Medical School, said, “We know of everyone and anyone who has been here since the school was founded, and nobody by that name was listed.”

No Ties to USC

Robert P. Biller, executive vice provost, later issued a statement saying that USC has no record of Lockshin ever being at the university in any capacity. “The university has no present record that he was here,” Biller said.

The Stehlin Foundation, which employed Lockshin, was founded by cancer researcher John Stehlin and is separate from St. Joseph Hospital, though it uses space in the hospital for its work.

News reports about Lockshin came as a surprise to his former co-workers at the hospital. One acquaintance there described him as an “average kind of guy of who never discussed politics.”

Although he had a “nervous disposition,” the acquaintance said Lockshin was “a pretty quiet” man who dressed casually and “kept to himself.” When Lockshin occasionally joined his colleagues after work, his conversation often centered on his family.

Lockshin “never mentioned that he was planning to do anything strange,” this source said, but before he was dismissed from the hospital, he “seemed to be disgruntled about something.”

Penny Pagano reported from Washington and Joanne Harrison from Houston. Times staff writers Harry Nelson and David Holley in Los Angeles also contributed to this story.