Former refusenik David Goldfarb underwent a four-hour lung cancer operation at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital Wednesday which his son Alex described Thursday as having been successful. David Goldfarb remains in the intensive care unit, but Alex said that his father was joking with visitors and is in a good mood. Alex, a microbiologist at Columbia University, also said Thursday that his sister Olga in Moscow told him in a telephone call that Soviet authorities told her to call back in a week for an emergency visa to visit her father in New York. “This is good news,” he said. David Goldfarb had written a letter last Sunday from his hospital bed to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev asking that his daughter and family be permitted to join him as a humanitarian gesture.
David Goldfarb, 67, a retired geneticist, was released suddenly from his Moscow hospital bed last month upon the personal intervention of U.S. Industrialist Armand Hammer with Soviet leaders, and immediately flown to the United States with his wife Cecilia. His release followed a long campaign for his freedom by Alex.
David Goldfarb has been suffering from severe complications of diabetes, including partial amputation of his foot. Goldfarb lost his other leg as a Soviet war hero in the Battle of Stalingrad during World War II. He also suffers from heart disease and is due to undergo further surgery sometime in the future, Alex said.
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