U.S. Psychiatrists to Visit Soviet Mental Institutions

U.S. psychiatrists will be allowed to visit Soviet mental hospitals and interview patients, the State Department announced Friday, possibly opening the way for the release of many people who may have been committed for political reasons.

The agreement results from unprecedented human rights talks in Washington between the two countries and is part of a broad U.S. effort to focus on what it considers human rights abuses in the Soviet Union.

The two days of talks, called a “human rights round table,” ended Friday and also included discussion of capital punishment, emigration and religious freedom. “There are certain persons whose names have come up--still in psychiatric institutions--who, in the opinion of a great many people, may be there for reasons other than their mental health,” Richard Schifter, assistant secretary of state for human rights and humanitarian affairs, told a news conference.

The United States, Soviet activists and human rights organizations around the world have named dissidents they said are locked up unfairly, and Schifter said that there may be requests for examinations of specific patients. “I consider that a possibility,” he said. U.S. officials hope that such examinations will show that those patients are not mentally ill, thus leading to their possible release.

Under the agreement, Soviet psychiatrists also will be allowed to visit U.S. psychiatric institutions. Psychiatrists in both countries will work out details for these exchange visits.

In an interview after the talks ended, one of the participants, Dr. Loren H. Roth of the Western Psychiatric Institute at the University of Pittsburgh, said: “We look forward to these visits since, to the best of my knowledge, no Western psychiatrist has been permitted entry into special security hospitals such as the Serbskiy Institute.”

Schifter said that the Soviets have shown U.S. officials “a basic acceptance of the proposition that abuse of psychiatry has occurred and is a problem that they have to be concerned about.”

He portrayed the two days of talks as part of the “quiet diplomacy” practiced in the Reagan Administration. Once the Soviet Union acknowledged that abuses were taking place, there was no need to “rub it in,” he said, adding that Soviet officials had said they “are now taking steps” to prevent the psychiatric abuses.

‘Candid Exchanges’

Shifter noted that there were “candid exchanges” on other human rights issues. Describing religious freedom as a “ticklish topic,” he said that the Soviets “indicated they were prepared to move in that area.”

The Soviet Union and the United States exchanged criticism on the matter of capital punishment, with the Soviets noting that U.S. law allows the execution of minors. U.S. negotiators, on the other hand, pointed out that Soviet law allows executions for “economic crimes,” Schifter added.

He pointed out that the Soviets acknowledged that they execute 10 times as many people annually as this country, although the Soviet population is just 12% larger than that of the United States. Schifter also said that the Soviets conceded that they do not keep sufficient statistics on executions.

Initial Insecurity

When the talks began, Schifter said, “there was a certain amount of insecurity about how one gets going on matters of this kind. We really ended up on a very good basis.”

He called the talks a beginning, adding: “How far this will take us no one knows. We will continue this kind of dialogue.”

In addition to Schifter and Roth, the U.S. participants included: Dr. Roger Peele, head of St. Elizabeths Hospital in Washington, D.C.; Frank Kaufman, a federal judge from Baltimore, and several lawyers.

Among the Soviets were Anatoly L. Adamishin, deputy foreign minister; Dr. Gennady N. Milekhin, a psychiatrist at the Serbskiy Institute, and Veniamin F. Yakovlev of the Ministry of Justice.