GI Adjudged AWOL in Flight to Russia : Gets Bad Conduct Discharge, Loss of Military Benefits

A military judge today convicted an Army private who fled his West German post for the Soviet Union on a charge of being absent without leave, rejecting the more serious charge of desertion.

Pfc. Wade E. Roberts of Riverside, Calif., received a bad conduct discharge and was stripped of his military benefits, but avoided imprisonment. He could have faced one year of hard labor on the AWOL conviction.

The sentence, imposed by Col. Earl Pauley, brought moans and gasps from those in the courtroom.

The military’s lawyer, Capt. Daniel Shaver, who prosecuted the case, said afterward he was shocked by the sentence and had expected Roberts to serve prison time.

Roberts and his German-born wife hugged and kissed after the verdict was announced.

Roberts fled his base at Giessen, West Germany, on Feb. 28 last year and traveled with his girlfriend, Petra Neumann, to the Soviet Union. He returned to West Germany on Nov. 4, and was arrested the following day.

The military had pressed for the desertion charge in the two-day court-martial at Ft. Dix.

Roberts’ attorney, Ronald Kuby, said Pauley’s decision showed “We’re not going to have a political trial, we’re not going to have a show trial. We’re not going to punish people because they make friends in the Soviet Union.”

Tells of Disenchantment

Roberts testified earlier today that he returned to the West from his eight-month self-imposed exile to the Soviet Union because he and his pregnant girlfriend became disenchanted with communism and feared being trapped there.

“I wanted to get out of the country,” Roberts said. “We didn’t like it.”

The serviceman calmly told the court that he and his girlfriend, whom he later wed, did not like their work at a Soviet snake laboratory. He also said that he feared that if his son was born there, he would automatically be granted Soviet citizenship.

“We felt if he were a Soviet citizen, we’d be trapped there, and we wouldn’t be able to leave,” Roberts said.

On Wednesday Roberts testified he was told to stop seeing Neumann.

“I was told by my first sergeant I shouldn’t see my wife anymore--at the time, she wasn’t my wife--she was pregnant,” Roberts said. “I was put on restriction, and I was experiencing some problems with my sergeants.

Defendant ‘Panicked’

“I left, and I went to Petra’s apartment,” he added. “I stayed away for over 30 days, and eventually I ended up in the Soviet Union.”

Kuby said Roberts’ actions did not meet the legal definition of desertion: unauthorized absence with no intent to return to the military.

“Wade Roberts panicked,” Kuby said. “He didn’t want to be separated from his wife.”

Shaver called more than a half-dozen witnesses to the stand to establish that Roberts did not like his unit, had disciplinary problems and wanted to leave.

The case was heard by a judge because Roberts exercised his option not to be tried by a jury of five officers and enlisted personnel.