The World - News from Jan. 20, 1987

Pravda Editor Viktor G. Afanasyev criticized Soviet emigration policy, saying that delays in processing requests for exit visas are creating negative publicity for Moscow in the West. “It seems to us that all is not right here,” Afanasyev said in an article in the Communist Party newspaper. “Bureaucratic behavior has penetrated here as well. Questions are not always resolved smoothly and quickly.” His comments were seen as a rare example of public treatment of a highly sensitive topic in the Soviet Union, taking the Kremlin’s campaign for greater frankness into the area of human rights.