Pregnant American, Husband Held by Soviets Over Petition : American Seeking Visa for Mate Seized in Moscow Petition Drive

Soviet authorities briefly detained a pregnant American woman and her Soviet husband today as they collected signatures outside a Moscow tourist hotel on a petition to allow him to travel to the West.

Susan Graham of Spokane, Wash., said she and her Soviet husband, Matvey Finkel, were held for three hours after police stopped them from gathering signatures on the petition outside Moscow’s Cosmos hotel.

The petition was an appeal to Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev to allow Finkel to leave the country, at least temporarily, to be with Graham, a U.S. citizen, when she gives birth. The child is due Dec. 27.

“We had about 40 signatures, mostly from foreign tourists, but then the police came and told us to stop,” Graham said.

Graham said police threatened her husband with internal exile if he continued his “public disturbances.”

Graham, who now works as a nanny for a Western family in Moscow, said she would return to the United States to have her baby even if her husband is refused permission to travel.