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Soviets Keep Married Couple Apart Three YearsOnce you go into a crusade, he said quietly as he shuffled his books around,then you become a fanatic ... It would become an obsession, and that isn’t going: CHARLOTTESVILLE (AP) - Wood-(qrd McClellan waits and wonders whether Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev ever will give him back his wife.. McClellan, professor of Soviet history at the University of Virginia, celebrated the third anniversary of his wedding to IrinaAstakhova on May 4.On Aug. 28, it will have been three years since they last saw each other.: Soviet officials refuse to let her leave their country, and they’re equally adamant in refusing McClellan permission to come back to the Soviet Union to visit her.: It doesn’t make sense, says McClellan, stretching his arms out. “Wh at did I do that was illegal by marrying a Soviet citizen?”McClellan is a tall man who wears wire-rimmed glasses and a mustache that's the same gray-blond color as his hair.A native of Illinois, McClellan has been teaching at U. Va. since 1965. Before that he was in the Army, and took his basic officer training at Ft. Eustis.He and his wife, an attractive Moscow divorcee, met while he was on an exchange trip to the Soviet Union in 1972.They fully expected bureaucratic red tape to keep Mrs. McClellan from leaving when his visa expired that August. But they thought she’d be in the United States by Christmas 1974.Now, security officials of the Russian secret police, the KGB, are telling Mrs. McClellan they’ll never let her out.In a quiet study cell at U. Va.’s Alderman Library, McClellan sat among his books and talked about their separation.“Until the two years' anniversary passed, I thought they’d let her out, he said. “Now, I just don’t know.”’. He has been told by friends in the State ’.Department that the United States will ;make his problem a test case when the'rr G f%w%A tho Qnviot TTninn mppt indiscuss the Helsinki human rights agreement.But last month Mrs. McClellan was refused an exit visa for the seventh or eighth time, There have been so many refusals that McClellan no longer can keep track of the number.“She asked, ‘Why? Won’t you tell me?’ They told her, ‘You know perfectly well why we’re keeping you,’ ” McClellan says.After three years' proof that a government can separate loved ones for noperceptible reason, McClellan finds it easy to think up countless reasons why his wife is forced to stay in Russia.Each is as plausibly illogical as the next. “Was my wife in any trouble? No. Was I in any trouble? No. They let us get married. It’s a given (logical) conclusion that people who are allowed to marry are going to be allowed to live together.”At first, the excuse was that Mrs. McClellan knew state secrets from the Soviet institute of national studies, where sheonce worked.But she never had a top-secret security clearance, something that would have prevented her marrying McClellan in thefirst place.McClellan said Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko once told former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who took a personal interest in the case, that the real problem was that McClellan was suspected of being an American spy.But, McClellan notes, he had beenallmifof! in pntpr and Ipavp the Soviet TTninnMrs. McClellan is no Co munlst, but neither is she an anti-Soviet dissenter, herhusband says.There never was any indication that the American professor planned to stay in Russia, so it was natural, he said, to expect she would move to the United States withhim.But the Russians “are perfectly capable of simply persecuting people for the sake of setting an example for others, he added.“They claim they have the best the freest society in the world. So every time somebody leaves, it implies that's nottrue,” he said.While they cannot see each other, the McClellans talk on the telephone once a month. They write each other twice monthly, and exchange gifts when friends — scholars, journalists, government officials — travel to Moscow.Meanwhile, Irina Astakhoma, a former high school-level teacher, makes a living giving private English lessons in Moscow, a private enterprise the Soviet government winks at.And McClellan, by his own admission, has become something of a hermit, keeping to himself in his AlbemarleCounty cottage.Nonetheless, he has received hundreds of sympathetic letters from peoplethroughout the country who’ve heard of his plight.here have been a dozen crank letters, denouncing him as a Communist forhave been sent in anonymous letters fromthe Soviet Union.McClellan answers the nice letters andignores the rest.He was reluctant, at first, to be interviewed. He wants no publicity, he said.“I’m no hero, God knows, he said. I’m no saint... I’m no Stoic, and I’m notmade out of steel.But you can’t go around with your problems on your sleeve. Of course, it’s terrible, but life goes on.I used to be very angry about it, but after three years I’ve gotten philosophical about it. Anger doesn’t help.So McClellan tries to separate his personal and professional lives, keeping his jaundiced view of the Soviet government from turning his history lectures on Russia into propaganda.ABINGDON (AP) — Hillsville Police Chief Eugene M. Pack pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court here Monday to three counts of mail fraud and one count of illegally dealing in firearms.Judge Glen M. Williams fined the 54-year-old Pack $5,000 and sentenced him to two years in prison, but suspended the sentence. He also placed him on three years’ probation.Each of the four charges against theto do anybody any good.McClellan constantly scans newspapers for articles that might give a hint on how the Soviets wii) act on the human rightsissue*He keeps two orderly file cabinets, replete with files relating to his wife: Letters to Irina, 1975. Letters from Irina, 1976. Letters from Senators Ted Kennedy John Sparkman, Hugh Scott, Harry F. Byrd Jr., Hubert Humphrey, Barry Goldwater - anyone who might help. Letters from Kissinger.Although McClellan still hopes his wife’s problem might be settled in Belgrade this fall, he’s pessimistic about the CarterWilliams consolidated the charges for sentencing because he felt Pack’s otherwise clear record should be taken into account.Appearing in a business suit rather than his uniform for the brief hearing, Pack told Williams he felt he had been treated fair by federal authorities.In an earlier statement to the Roanoke Times 4 Worid-News, Pack had said he felt he had been picked on.”Pack’s guilty plea caught federal prosecutors off guard.It was entirly unexpected by me, saidadministration's commitment to human rights.My wife had high hopes for the Carter administration, he said, his voice hesitant. (But) their enthusiasm for cases like this, I would say, is rather lukewarm.McClellan is even less happy with Secretary of State Cyrus Vance.. I don’t think that Cyrus Vance is deeply and sincerely committed to the cause of human rights, he said. I’m verydisappointed in Cyrus Vance.”It’s time to tell the Soviets, “You’ve tormented these people long enough — taken three years of their lives,” McClellan argues.It would cost the Soviets nothing toAssistant U.S. Attorney Morgan Scott Jr., who handled the case. “I had no pi r indication of what his plans would be. He just came in and pleaded guilty.”Scott said no plea bargaining was involved, and he made no sentencing recommendation.Pack’s attorney, J. L. Tompkins, urged the judge to show “mercy to the police chief.It could not be learned immediately whether Pack will remain as police chief of Hillsville, a town of 2,000 which is the county seat of Carroll County. He has held the post for 25 years.Apparently, however, he can continue in the job if he wants to.Hillsville Mayor Raleigh M. Cooley recently called Pack the best policemana tnu/n of f h r c eotflf) n h.police chief had carried a possible five-year prison term.Court officials said, however, that Judge**'Slrinnv Dinners' Raided’What did I do that was illegalby marrying a Soviet Citizen ?’release my wife,” he said.Police Chief Enters Guilty Plea
Newspaper Details
Daily News-Record
Harrisonburg, Virginia, US
Tue, Jul 19, 1977
Page 1
Full Page
Clipped by
James M.
USA 20 Sep 2022
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