‘Chance to Be a Man’ : Persecuted as GI, Defector Tells Soviets

Pvt. Wade E. Roberts, who is listed as a deserter by the U.S. Army, was quoted Wednesday as saying he was persecuted in the Army and fled to the Soviet Union because he was “given a chance to be a man.”

Tass, the official Soviet news agency, also quoted Roberts as saying his decision to leave his unit in West Germany was “politically motivated.” Roberts, whom Tass described as the son of a metal worker in San Bernardino, Calif., was accompanied to Moscow by a woman identified as Petra Neumann, a West German national.

The report was the first from the Soviet media since the government announced last week that Roberts and Neumann had been granted asylum.

The news agency said Roberts was interviewed in a hotel suite here before he and Neumann departed for Ashkabad, the capital of the Soviet Republic of Turkmenia. It distributed photos of Roberts and Neumann taken in Red Square. There were previous suggestions that the two were married, but Tass on Wednesday referred to Neumann as Roberts’ “girlfriend.”

‘Horror of Injustice’

“Roberts told Tass that their decision was not treachery,” the agency said. “He said he loved his people, but the world should become aware of the horror of social injustice and flagrant violations of human rights.”

Tass quoted Roberts as saying that before he joined the Army, he had tried unsuccessfully for two years to find a job in the United States.

In the Army, Roberts said, he was persecuted for his independent attitude, according to the Tass account. The news agency quoted Neumann as saying Roberts had once been jailed by U.S. military authorities. No details were given.

“Human dignity and human rights are flouted there at every turn,” Tass quoted Roberts. “Men are turned into robots. Hatred is inculcated toward other countries and peoples, especially the Soviet Union. Racist prejudices thrive.

“Our decision (to defect) was not only our salvation but also a demonstrative protest against the social ills and the flouting of human dignity in the United States.”

In the Soviet Union, Roberts has found life to be better, saying, “You have given me the chance to be a man,” Tass reported.

A spokesman for the Soviet Foreign Ministry, Gennady I. Gerasimov, announced that Roberts has been granted asylum. He confirmed that Roberts had been serving at a U.S. post in West Germany.

U.S. military officials have confirmed that a Pvt. Wade E. Roberts has been absent without leave since March 2 from a unit based about 45 miles northeast of Frankfurt and is listed as a deserter.

The U.S. military newspaper Stars and Stripes quoted an acquaintance of Roberts on Wednesday as saying that he was in trouble with the Army and had discussed with his girlfriend how to desert.

Roberts obtained political asylum papers at the Soviet Embassy in Bonn and then drove to Moscow, the paper said.