He Will Rejoin U.S. Wife With Help of Many : Grateful Refusenik Ready to Depart

After eight years of struggle, Matvey Finkel on Tuesday was preparing to leave the Soviet Union, and he had reason to be grateful to a number of people he had never met, from the President of the United States to 600 high school students in Washington state.

Only two months ago, Finkel received the latest in a long line of refusals in response to his request to leave the Soviet Union to join his American wife, Susan Graham, in the United States.

It was an especially bitter experience, Finkel said, because the authorities, inadvertently or not, timed the bad news to coincide with his 39th birthday.

All that was forgotten this week, however, as he and Graham declared victory in their long effort to obtain an exit visa for him. The Soviet authorities had finally said “Da. “

Letter From Reagan

The happy ending was assisted by President Reagan, who wrote a personal letter to Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev about their plight. Gorbachev also received a letter from 600 students at the Spokane, Wash., high school from which Graham was graduated.

The government’s permission was first disclosed Friday by Graham, who has been staying in Moscow since just after their daughter was born in the United States on Jan. 1. The issuance of a foreign passport and departure visa was the last chapter in a saga that included a hunger strike, demonstrations, a bombardment of the Kremlin with petitions and letters and steady pressure from members of Congress.

Finkel and Graham were founders and active members of the Coalition of Divided Spouses, a group that seeks to overcome Soviet emigration barriers that often separate Soviet-American couples.

At one time, there were 24 couples in this category. Now, according to Soviet officials, the number has fallen to 15, but for those who remain divided, the pain is no less.

“During one period, I didn’t see Susan for two years, and sometimes I thought I never would leave,” Finkel said in an interview.

Trained as a metallurgical engineer, he lost his job because of his marriage to an American. Then he found work selling tickets on the subway but lost that job for the same reason.

“I was detained by the police 10 times and twice by the KGB,” Finkel recalled without apparent rancor.

Graham, who worked as a governess for several Western journalists, was able to stay with her husband in Moscow for most of the past four years. Earlier, however, she was unable even to obtain a tourist’s visa to see Finkel.

They met when she was a student in Leningrad and were married on Dec. 11, 1979, just two weeks before the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan plunged Soviet-American relations to a low point.

Now, however, their minds are on the future in Spokane, where Finkel already has been made an honorary citizen.

“Of course, it’s difficult to start a new life when you’re 39 years old and don’t speak perfect English,” he said. “I want to find a job immediately. It doesn’t matter what kind of job.”

Graham says she is still in a mild state of shock.

“It was so hard for so long, but now everything’s so easy,” she said, bouncing Emily on her knee. “We got an awful lot of help, especially in the last year.”

They both credited Rep. Tom Foley (D-Wash.), her congressman, for continuous efforts on their behalf, as well as Armand Hammer, the American industrialist who has close ties with the Soviet Establishment.

Finkel said several of his friends who helped to start the Coalition of Divided Spouses eight years ago are still waiting for their exit visas--Sergei Petrov, Yelena Kaplan and Galina Michaelson.

“Of course, I will try to help them leave,” he said with the same quiet determination he has showed for the last eight years.