Nearly a full year after Prof. David Goldfarb arrived suddenly in the U.S. from Moscow on board the private jet of billionaire industrialist Armand Hammer, he wants to go home for a visit. On Monday, Goldfarb held a press conference here in the apartment of his son Alex to announce that on Tuesday morning he and his wife Cecilia will go to the Soviet Consulate in Washington to ask for a temporary visa to see their daughter Olga “for a few weeks.”
As was the case last October, when the ailing retired geneticist arrived on a stretcher to the glare of intense publicity, Goldfarb was once more turning to the media to advance the cause of family reunification.
Goldfarb, 69, seated in a wheelchair and speaking very softly, told the crowd of reporters that he and his wife “miss our daughter and granddaughters very much and cannot go on any longer without seeing them. They cannot come here, so we decided to go there.” He read from a carefully prepared written statement and then answered questions from the press as hot television lights beat down on him, his wife and son.
The elder Goldfarb said he wanted to make it clear “that it is not interpreted as our disappointment in the United States or rejection of any aspect of our life here. The reasons for our decision are not political but personal.”
Although it has been variously reported by private individuals that some Soviet emigres have been permitted to visit the Soviet Union and return to the U.S., Goldfarb’s case is different because he and his wife still retain Soviet citizenship.
When he was abruptly taken from his hospital bed last October and flown here in a private deal between Hammer and high Soviet officials, Goldfarb, a seven-year refusenik, did not go through the normal procedure in which Soviet emigres must relinquish their citizenship. Goldfarb came to this country as a medical emergency under a provision called “humanitarian parole,” and he and Cecilia still retain their Soviet passports. “As Soviet citizens, we need Soviet permission both to go in and get out of the Soviet Union,” Goldfarb said.
Olga Goldfarb, now 34, was permitted to visit her father here last November when he underwent surgery for lung cancer. The move was unexpected from Soviet authorities and lent hope to the family that they would soon be reunited in New York. However, Olga’s emigration is still pending along with that of her two daughters, Katya, 10, and Nadia, 4, and Olga’s husband, Yuri Lev, 37. In June, Goldfarb suffered a transient stroke in which an embolus traveled from his heart to his brain. At the time, he was unable to speak, but after about two days his symptoms of Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital. Prager sent a cable to the Soviet Embassy asking that Olga again be permitted to visit as she had last year after the doctor sent a similar cable. This time, said Alex, “the conditions have changed,” and their situation is not considered special.
Goldfarb said he is aware of his precarious medical condition, but “I do not have the time to wait for years. I do not have the strength to wage a war of attrition to get them out.” He acknowledged that he “will not get there proper medical attention if needed. I do not know whether we will be allowed back out. But life without our girls is unbearable and we decided to take this risk.”
Prager told JTA that “It’s a damn good thing he came when he did” last year, suffering as he did from acute diabetes and an ulcerated foot that threatened his remaining leg. He lost the other in World War II. He has been fitted with a prosthesis, which is not yet comfortable. His leg problem has cleared up and he has “no sequel from lung cancer,” Prager said. “He can travel, but there is a risk,” the doctor said.
Goldfarb said he would risk the chance of being allowed into the Soviet Union without the promise that he could return to the U.S. Ideally, his desire is that Olga and her family be allowed to join them in New York.
In 1984, Goldfarb was purportedly offered visas for himself, his wife, daughter and her family if he would help the KGB entrap American reporter Nicholas Daniloff of U.S. News and World Report in some form of espionage. Alex said they received postcards announcing that visas awaited them. However, Alex admitted, they never saw the visas.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
