Soviet Union

By Bruce W. Nelan

Every morning for months a ragtag line of Soviet citizens has formed outside the American embassy in Moscow, jamming the guarded main entrance and snaking 100 yards down Tchaikovsky Street. The crowds push and break into noisy arguments. On particularly rowdy days some desperate applicants offer Soviet policemen as much as 700 rubles ($1,120) to sneak them to the front of the queue. Soviet emigration, for so long a trickle, has turned into an avalanche. Each year for three years the number of emigres has doubled, and so far in 1989 some 80,000 Soviets have applied to leave. More than 90% want to go to the U.S.

This week the crowd in front of the embassy should begin to thin under the impact of new rules issued in Washington. Would-be emigrants will no longer be allowed to apply for visas in the embassy's consular office; instead, they must fill out an application and send it to Washington. Applicants who merit refugee status will be notified by international postcard to report to the | embassy in Moscow for a personal interview.

U.S. officials estimate that about 300,000 Soviet citizens, mostly Jews and Armenians, will send in forms during the next twelve months. The annual quota set by Washington, however, will provide no more than 50,000 with refugee visas -- a 25% increase over last year -- and an additional 30,000 with "parole" status, permission to come to the U.S. but with no financial assistance. Result: the U.S., after demanding for years that the U.S.S.R. loosen its emigration laws, will turn away more than 200,000 Soviet emigres.

The situation is embarrassing for the U.S. But officials say the administrative and financial burdens involved are growing overwhelming. "Nowhere is it written," protested one, "that the U.S. should be the only destination of Soviets who want to emigrate." If embassy officials are defensive about the new procedures, they are also firm. To qualify as refugees, Soviets, like all other applicants, must prove that they have a "well-grounded fear" of persecution; those who succeed get an average of $7,500 in U.S. Government aid.

In recent years, most Soviet Jews who left their country -- almost 19,000 during 1988 -- did so on exit visas for Israel. But during stopovers in Rome or Vienna almost all of them switched their destination to the U.S. They will no longer be allowed to do that, and some American Jewish organizations are protesting.

The Israeli government, however, considers the new U.S. policy a godsend. It is hoping that thousands of such emigres will now actually come to the Jewish state and help balance the rapidly growing Arab population. Finance Minister Shimon Peres announced during a visit to Washington last week that Israel expected some 100,000 immigrants from the Soviet Union by 1992 and planned to spend $3 billion to assist them. "I don't think there is anything more important than to have Russian Jews coming to Israel," he said.

With reporting by Ann Blackman/Moscow and Ricardo Chavira/Washington