To Our Readers

By ELIZABETH VALK LONG President

Journalists rightly pride themselves on their objectivity, but in special cases personal involvement can be deeply gratifying. Just ask TIME correspondent Ann Blackman. As a member of our Moscow bureau in 1987, Blackman was struck by the plight of a family of Jewish refuseniks she met. Her daughter Leila and Vera Zieman became friends. Yuri and Tanya Zieman, who had % been trying vainly to emigrate to the U.S., led a lonely life of outcasts. "We spent countless hours at their kitchen table," Blackman says, "sipping tea and learning firsthand how difficult Soviet life was for average people."

When Vera, then 12, wrote to President Reagan for help, says Blackman, "I made sure the Reagans would see Vera's letter by sending it through an intermediary from my previous years in Washington." The First Family took an interest in the Ziemans, who made national headlines during the historic 1988 Reagan-Gorbachev summit when Gorbachev sent a warning that the President not see the family. But after the Ziemans were once again denied emigration rights, Reagan intervened, and they were at last granted permission to leave the U.S.S.R. They moved to a tiny white clapboard house in Waltham, Massachusetts, where they promptly became red-white-and-blue American suburbanites. Yuri got a job as a computer programmer; Tanya taught English and lectured on Russian life; and Vera, an accomplished pianist, was accepted with a full scholarship to Milton Academy. On their dining-room wall they hung a framed copy of the Declaration of Independence.

Last week Yuri and Tanya reaped the most cherished fruits of their trials when they stood in Boston's historic Faneuil Hall and, tears streaming down their cheeks, were sworn in as citizens of the United States. "This is the most important day of my life," said Yuri later, as he and his family celebrated at home with Blackman (the menu: their typical Russian-American fare of pizza with borsch). "I feel like I have acquired wings," said Tanya. "It's incredible how many things you can do in this country when you set your mind to it."

For Blackman, sharing the festivity with the Z's, as she affectionately calls them, "was proof that occasionally a reporter can make a difference in people's lives. The stories that mean the most to me are the ones that show people on one side of the world that the ones on the other side have so much in common."