Soviet Jewry groups confirmed reports from the Soviet Union that Benjamin Levich, a leading physical chemist, and his wife, have been given permission to emigrate after six years of rebuffs. Both are 61. Mrs. Levich has been hospitalized several times with a heart condition, which reportedly has been aggravated by Soviet harassment of the Levich family since their initial applications for exit visas.
Levich said he had been informed by telephone last Thursday that the visas were ready and that he had one month to leave but hoped he could leave earlier. He said it depended on his wife’s health. The Levich’s sons, Yevgeny and Alexander, were given permission to leave in 1975.
The case of the Leviches was one of those that Soviet authorities said they were reviewing after a visit to Moscow in September by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D. Mass.), who discussed a number of such cases with Soviet leaders. Levich was a Moscow University professor when he first applied to leave in March, 1973. He was refused permission to leave on grounds he had had access to nuclear secrets and was dismissed from the universities .Levich, who has many invitations to teach at universities in Britain, the United States and elsewhere, said he and his wife will go to Israel.
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