Goldfarb Petitions Gorbachev for Daughter

NEW YORK —  Released Jewish refusenik David Goldfarb said Sunday he has asked Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev to let his daughter join him in the United States.

From Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center, where he is to be operated on for a lung tumor, Goldfarb released the contents of a letter he sent to Gorbachev “to bring your attention to the situation of my daughter and her family in Moscow.”

Goldfarb’s daughter, Olga, her husband and two grandchildren were left behind when Goldfarb, 67, and his wife were allowed out of the Soviet Union on Oct. 16 after American industrialist Armand Hammer intervened.

“Your efforts to liberalize the Soviet society, to make it more open, efficient and livable, along with your unprecedented initiatives on nuclear arms reduction, convince me that you have both the will and capacity for radical change,” Goldfarb wrote.

The prominent refusenik--a term for Soviets, primarily Jews, who are not allowed to emigrate--called his release a miracle and said he hopes the release of his daughter and her family “will be a continuation of the miracle.”