Bonner Arrives in U.S. to Joyful Reunion With Kin

BOSTON —  Yelena Bonner, wife of Soviet dissident Andrei D. Sakharov, arrived Saturday in the United States to a joyful reunion with her daughter and 85-year-old mother, whom she saw for the first time in five years.

Bonner, 62, who has suffered two heart attacks and is expected to undergo coronary bypass surgery here, received permission from Soviet authorities to leave the Soviet Union for 90 days for medical treatment.

Accompanied by her son, Alexei Semyonov, and son-in-law, Efrem Yankelevich, Bonner earlier in the day left Italy, where she sought treatment for an eye ailment. She arrived at Boston’s Logan Airport after a brief stopover in New York and was immediately ushered into a private VIP lounge by state troopers, where she was greeted by her daughter, Tatyana Yankelevich; her mother, Ruth Bonner, and three grandchildren, Anna, 10, Matvei, 12, and Alexandra, 2.

Thirty minutes later, a smiling Bonner emerged from the lounge carrying a bouquet of flowers and clutching the arms of her daughter and mother. “Thank you very much for this warm reception,” she said in Russian, as her daughter translated to more than 100 reporters crowded behind a barrier.

“I am concerned and anxious for my husband. That is all I can tell,” Bonner said, sticking to her agreement with the Soviet government not to discuss her husband, who is in exile in the city of Gorky.

But her son, Semyonov, disclosed some particulars of the visit.

“It is due to the press that she was able to make this trip and you have a right to know what’s happening,” he said, adding that he has “little confidence” in a report Saturday by the Soviet news agency Tass reporting Sakharov, 64, to be in good health.

“(Bonner) is going to place a call to Gorky as soon as possible,” he said. “She hopes to call her husband on Monday or Tuesday.”

If she is unable to reach Sakharov, Semyonov said her trip to the West “may be pointless.” He would not elaborate.

Semyonov said his mother was shocked to hear that film footage was released last summer showing Sakharov after a medical checkup.

“It is a moral outrage that Soviet doctors would participate in this intrusion of privacy--an intrusion for political reasons,” he went on.

Thanking a group of well-wishers near the airport exit in Russian, Bonner was escorted to a private car, which took her to the Yankeleviches’ home in Newton, Mass., a Boston suburb.

Semyonov said Bonner will consult a heart specialist Monday, but did not indicate where the examination will take place. She is expected to return to Italy afterward for further treatment of her eye ailments.

In New York, Tom Middlemiss, a spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, was among those permitted to meet Bonner’s flight. He said she appeared tired but smiled and waved as she disembarked from the jet.

Bonner was dressed in a brown cloth coat and a white hat.