Glasnost in Soviet Media

In The Times’ “Open-and-Shut Case?” editorial (Aug. 12) about Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s policy of glasnost, or openness, in the Soviet media, Viktor Karpov, head of the Soviet Writers Union, is quoted as saying: “There are no forbidden topics.” However, during a visit to the U.S.S.R. in May as a member of a peace delegation from the American Fellowship of Reconciliation, I discovered two.

First, as president of the Los Angeles Center of PEN International, I probed the question of imprisoned writers and dissidents, and how their views are denied access to the media and the public.

A Soviet journalist astonished me when he exclaimed: “They are made into heroes by the yellow press, including Amnesty International reports, PEN newsletters, and the New York Times.” Vitaly Korotich, editor-in-chief of Ogonyok magazine and secretary of the board of the Soviet Writers Union, heatedly asked me: “Who is a writer? Many writers who wrote bad books started to make trouble and fight.”

In the course of a clandestine meeting with 15 dissidents in an urban apartment, I heard these opinions expressed: “There are forbidden topics.” “If a writer is not willing to reflect ‘proper ideas,’ he or she is subject to repression.” “We are given very little information on imprisoned writers. You probably have more information on some than we do.”

Second, as a gay man and priest, I searched for information about the condition of gay life in the U.S.S.R. Korotich, one of the most influential journalists in the Soviet Union, told me: “We are preparing articles on sex education. We publish a lot about prostitutes here. Maybe we’ll come to homosexuality later.”

A dissident confided: “Homosexuals live a totally underground life. To engage in this behavior is a crime.” A Soviet gay man spoke to me briefly, eloquently and under great stress: “I have a secret network of friends. It is important for me to stay hidden, for no one to suspect at all that I am a homosexual.”

Yet glasnost appears in a positive light in many other areas of Soviet life. Commendable and vastly encouraging, it is not an altruistic exercise. It is a necessary prerequisite for perestroika (restructuring), without which the U.S.S.R. will be in great trouble.

It occurs to me that we in America could benefit from a dose of home-grown glasnost and perestroika in our public life at this time, even giving a warm welcome to a U.S. equivalent of Gorbachev-cum-openness on our political scene.

MALCOLM BOYD

Santa Monica