GI Who Defected to Soviet Union Is Back in West

A U.S. Army private who defected to the Soviet Union seven months ago returned to the West on Wednesday and said he will surrender to American authorities.

Wade E. Roberts, 22, said he does not want to return to the Soviet Union but does not know if he will be going to the United States.

Roberts, who flew to Frankfurt from Moscow aboard an Aeroflot jetliner with his pregnant girlfriend, Petra Neumann, told Cable News Network in an interview that he does not expect to be charged with desertion.

“I have a piece of paper from the United States Embassy that they gave me stating that the only charge that they have against me is for being AWOL (absent without leave),” Roberts told CNN.

Roberts, who was assigned to a post in West Germany when he defected to the Soviet Embassy in East Berlin, told reporters two weeks ago that he was prepared to go home to face trial on charges of desertion.

Since then, he had been in contact with the U.S. Embassy in Moscow trying to arrange his return to the West.

No Military at Airport

Peter Arnett, CNN Moscow bureau chief, accompanied Roberts on the flight and said he was not met by any U.S. military officials at the Frankfurt airport.

Roberts, from the San Bernardino-Riverside area, was declared absent without leave from his unit in West Germany on March 2 and declared a deserter and dropped from the Army’s rolls on April 2.

Neumann, 24, helped Roberts slip across the border into East Germany in the trunk of a rented car in April.

Roberts told CNN he decided to return and give himself up because of Neumann’s pregnancy.

“I’ve got this child coming with Petra and I really don’t feel like I should go around for the rest of my life having a charge . . . from the United States hanging over my head,” Roberts said. “It’s not a very pleasant prospect to look forward to.”

The official Soviet news agency Tass quoted Roberts as saying there were no political motives behind his decision.

“Our marriage is not registered, and she’s pregnant,” Tass quoted Roberts as saying. “Besides, her husband is in West Germany, and in Ashkhabad, there were difficulties with registering the birth of our child.”

Roberts and Neumann were living in Ashkhabad, capital of the Central Asian republic of Turkmenia, before their return to Moscow several weeks ago.

Tass said the couple had been provided with a “well-appointed” apartment in Ashkhabad for which they paid 10 rubles, or about $15, monthly rent. It also said Roberts had been able to choose his job as a snake catcher and had expressed an interest in exotic animals when he arrived in the Soviet Union.