Bonner Has a Private Meeting With Pontiff; Flies to U.S. Today
VATICAN CITY — Pope John Paul II on Friday received Yelena Bonner, the wife of dissident Soviet physicist Andrei D. Sakharov, the Vatican announced.
The Vatican gave no details on the meeting, arranged on the eve of her departure for the United States today.
“Mrs. Bonner had expressed the desire to see the Holy Father. The meeting was held this evening in the strictest privacy,” said the brief statement read by Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro.
The papal audience came a day after Bonner met with Italian Prime Minister Bettino Craxi, who during a trip to Moscow earlier this year offered to host Bonner in Italy for medical treatment.
Earlier Friday, Bonner received her U.S. visa and what her son described as a “warm welcoming letter” to the United States from Secretary of State George P. Shultz.
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