Now It’s Official: Soviets Can Join Mates in U.S.

MOSCOW —  Two Soviet women who are married to Americans said Wednesday that they have been told, after years of waiting, that they can go to the United States.

Five other Soviet men and women, all married to Americans, have also been advised that they will be given permission to emigrate, according to a U.S. Embassy official.

Soviet officials, in what was seen as a gesture on the eve of last month’s summit conference in Geneva, had indicated that all seven would be permitted to join their relatives in the United States. Their names were on a list of “divided spouses” that was delivered to the State Department a few days before President Reagan met with Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

But they did not immediately receive official notification from the Soviet authorities.

One of the seven is Irina McClellan, an English teacher who was married in 1974 to Woodford McClellan, a professor of Russian history at the University of Virginia. She said she was told by the Soviet emigration office, after 11 years of waiting, that she could leave.

“I hope I can go, but I want to have the visa in my hand,” she said, adding that paper work may still delay her departure until mid-January or later.

Tatyana Bondereva, the 27-year-old wife of Tony Bartholomew of Glendale, Calif., said she too has received word from the emigration office.

“They told me I could pack my bags,” she said.

She said she hopes to be with her husband for the Christmas holidays. They were married in 1983, and her application to leave the Soviet Union had been rejected four times.

Told Indirectly

A U.S. Embassy official who has been monitoring the situation said others on the list have been told in various ways that they will be allowed to emigrate.

“One of them was advised that this was his last application for an exit visa,” the official said. “It’s encouraging.”

The others on the list are Helle Frejus, wife of Kazimierz Frejus of Pomona, Calif.; Alexei Lodisev, husband of Sandra Lubin of Ann Arbor, Mich.; Dimitri Argakov, husband of Mary Lou Hulseman of Cleveland; Michael Iossel, husband of Edith Luthi of Holliston, Mass., and Leonard Ablavsky, husband of Robin Rubendunst of Somerville, Mass.

There are about two dozen other Soviet men and women who have been waiting for years for permission to join their wives and husbands abroad. Their names did not appear on the list given to the State Department.

Only 5 Months

One American, Los Angeles businessman Romaine Fielding, 66, has fared better than most. He will be taking his Soviet bride home after a waiting period of only five months.

But Fielding is something of a phenomenon in Moscow. He is a Russian-speaking entrepreneur who has been doing business with the Soviet Union for 27 years. And he is unusual in another respect, too. His marriage to Nina F. Dobrova, 39, is his second with a Soviet national. A 1964 marriage ended in divorce.

Fielding and his new wife, a nurse, were married last June in the Moscow suburb of Krasnogorsk. She received permission in November to emigrate and join her husband in Thousand Oaks, where a new home awaits them.

A dapper man with wavy gray hair, Fielding told a reporter that it took some effort to persuade his new wife to accompany him to the United States.

“She’s a very good and devoted (Soviet) citizen,” he said. “This has been a very wrenching thing for her, because she never dreamed she would leave her country.”

Will Visit Often

His wife, nodding agreement, said she would be returning to the Soviet Union with Fielding on his twice-a-year business trips.

They plan to leave Friday, spend a day in Paris and then fly to Los Angeles on Sunday. Fielding has scheduled another trip to Moscow in May.

“I would characterize myself as a poor man’s Armand Hammer,” he said, referring to the American industrialist who has done billions of dollars worth of business with the Kremlin.

Fielding made his first sale to the Soviet Union in 1958, providing Moscow with its first self-service laundry. He followed up by selling a self-service dry-cleaning plant, and then sold a plant for making quick repairs to shoes.

Now, he said, his business consists mainly of providing spare parts and representing other firms that value his expertise in dealing with the Soviets.