34. Editorial Note
By early April 1983, the situation with the Russian Pentecostals who had taken refuge in the U.S. Embassy in Moscow since June 1978 began to take a turn. Since their meeting with President Ronald Reagan on February 15 (see Document 10), Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin and Secretary of State George Shultz had continued the discussions about the Pentecostal situation. On February 28, Soviet Minister-Counselor Oleg Sokolov delivered a message to Shultz (see Document 12), which Shultz deemed a “significant overture” in his memoir. (Shultz, Turmoil and Triumph, page 168) Due to an illness, one member of the Pentecostals, Lidia Vashchenko, had been allowed to leave the Embassy to be admitted to the hospital. She then returned to her home town in Siberia in January 1983. On April 2, Shultz sent a memorandum to Reagan informing him that “Soviet authorities have requested Lidia Vashchenko to apply formally for exit permission and on March 30 she did so. She is now in her hometown, Chernogorsk, awaiting a decision on her application. If it is approved, she will receive an Israeli visa (her nominal destination) in Moscow and exit via Vienna.”
Shultz went on to comment that the United States might have difficulties convincing the other six Pentecostals to leave the Embassy and apply for exit permission. “Even a dramatic development such as Lidia’s departure may not make this easy, since the Vashchenko and Chmykhalov families remain deeply afraid of what may happen to [Page 113] them.” (Reagan Library, Executive Secretariat, NSC Country File, Europe and Soviet Union, USSR (04/02/83))
Shultz planned to send Dr. Olin Robison to Moscow to visit the Pentecostals in the Embassy. He wrote in his memoir: “Robison, president of Middlebury College and a lay Baptist minister, had spent time in the embassy during the Carter administration and knew the Pentecostals well. He was the right person, we felt, to explain to the Pentecostals what had happened and to express our view that if they left the U.S. embassy, the Soviets would likely grant them permission to leave the Soviet Union.” (Shultz, Turmoil and Triumph, page 170)
Robison came to Washington and met with Shultz on April 5. Robison also met with Sokolov, whom he had known for many years. In an April 5 memorandum to Shultz, Richard Burt reported: “Robison made clear at the outset that he was seeking neither assurances nor responses from Sokolov. He wanted Sokolov to be fully aware of what he was doing. Robison told Sokolov he was going to Moscow because he is convinced after seeing both the Secretary and the President that the time is propitious for the Pentecostalists to leave the Embassy, and because of his concern for them as individuals.” Robison stressed that the “Soviets surely know how important it is to ranking members of the U.S. Government that this matter come out right.” He continued that “this is an exceptional opportunity for something constructive to transpire, and Lidia’s current travel has led him and others to be optimistic.” (Department of State, Executive Secretariat, S/S, Special Handling Restrictions Memos, 1979–1983, Lot 96D262, ES Sensitive File, April 1–8 1983)
In the meantime, Lidia Vashchenko was given an exit visa to leave the Soviet Union. In his diary entry on April 6, Reagan wrote: “They have let Lydia—the young hunger striker member of the family that’s been living in the embassy basement in Moscow for 4 yrs. go. She is in Vienna as of today.” (Brinkley, ed., The Reagan Diaries, volume I, January 1981–October 1985, page 212) Lidia being allowed to leave the Soviet Union helped compel the departure of the remaining Pentecostals. In his memoir, Shultz recalled: “Dr. Robison and others in our embassy had a strong set of arguments to work with and Lidia’s departure was the clincher. On April 12, the Vashchenko and Chmykhalov families left the U.S. embassy, took flights to their village in Siberia, and applied for permission to leave. Lidia’s invitation to her family to join her in Israel fulfilled the final condition imposed on the Vashchenkos for their departure from our embassy.” Shultz “assured President Reagan that we would monitor the developments in Siberia as closely as possible, but, of course, we had no American personnel there. We now had taken the fate of these human beings into our hands. And by this time we were dependent on the reliability of the inferences the [Page 114] Soviets had encouraged us to make from their statements.” (Shultz, Turmoil and Triumph, pages 170–171) On April 12, Reagan wrote in his diary: “Today the Pentacostals left the Am. Embassy basement in Moscow where they’ve lived in the basement for 4 yrs. They left at our request. We think—well more than that we’re sure we have a deal that they will be allowed to emigrate.” (Brinkley, ed., The Reagan Diaries, volume I, January 1981–October 1985, page 215)