Released Ukrainian Dissident May Accept Post at Harvard

Valentyn Moroz, one of the five dissidents who arrived in the United States Friday in exchange for two Soviet spies, reportedly plans to accept a standing University offer to assume a post at Harvard's Ukrainian Studies Institute.

"As far as I know, the only thing standing in his way would be a medical problem that prevents him from coming--we received a definite impression that he would like to accept the offer," Stephan Chemych, head of the Ukrainian Studies Fund (USF) that sponsored Harvard's invitation, said yesterday.

Chemych met with Moroz, a leading Ukrainian nationalist and historian, on Saturday. The 43-year-old author and teacher has requested a full medical examination, denied to him while imprisoned by Soviet authorities, before making any firm decision on the offer, Chemych added.

Moroz could not be reached for comment yesterday.

Though President Bok first invited Moroz and his family to spend a year at Harvard nearly five years ago, Moroz did not officially receive the invitation until yesterday, two days after his release.

Moroz told a representative from the Institute he was "very highly honored" to be invited by "the oldest and most prestigious university in America" for the 1979-80 academic year.

Ihor Sevcenko, professor of Byzantine History and Literature and associate director of the Institute, said Moroz would probably make his decision within "two to three weeks," after visiting Cambridge for discussions with University and Institute officials.

Although he said "we all very much hope he will be coming," Sevcenko would not confirm that Moroz plans to accept the offer. "It's much better to be cautious," he said.

Sevcenko said Moroz's position with the Institute, if he were able to come, has not yet been determined, but would likely take the form of senior research fellow. He described as "inexact" a Boston Globe report that Moroz has been offered a teaching post.

In 1974, while serving a 14-year sentence for "anti-Soviet propaganda and agitation" at Vladimir Prison near Moscow, Moroz went on a 20-week hunger strike to protest his confinement and poor living conditions at the prison.

During Moroz's hunger strike, at the urging of members of the Institute, Bok sent a letter inviting Moroz and his family to spend the 1975-76 academic year at Harvard. The offer has been periodically repeated since then, most recently in April 1977.

Moroz said this weekend that Soviet authorities had not permitted him to receive the letters, but his wife had informed him of the offer.

Moroz has been in Soviet prisons almost continually since 1965. After completing a four year term for alleged anti-Soviet activities, he was arrested again in June 1970 after nine months of freedom for writing a series of essays protesting Soviet domination of the Ukraine. His current sentence, five years imprisonment and five years exile, would have extended through 1984.

Along with fellow dissidents Aleksandr Ginzburg, Mark Dymshits, George P. Vins and Edward S. Kuznetsov, Moroz was exchanged on Friday for Valdik A. Enger and Rudolf P. Chernyayev, both United Nations employees convicted last year of spying for the Soviet Union and sentenced to 50 years.

Darkness at Noon

At a news conference in New York on Saturday, Moroz said he had often been beaten by prison guards and was kept in solitary confinement in freezing weather for four months last year.

"It's not necessary for beatings to create horrible conditions. Conditions can be created to constitute torture even without physical violence," Moroz said.

In a statement read Saturday on behalf of Moroz, Kuznetsov, Ginzburg and Dymshits, the four dissidents said, "yesterday, we were still deprived of all rights; today, we are here in a country which for more than 200 years has been a symbol of freedom."

Moroz appeared "very emaciated and lean" and will undergo intensive medical testing over the next week, Sevcenko said. He added Moroz "expressed pleasure and astonishment that so many young people were interested in his scholarship."

Accompanied by four Harvard graduate students, Sevcenko spoke with Moroz yesterday afternoon at a memorial service at the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Bound Brook, N.J.

Best known for "A Report from the Beria Reservation," an account of prison life written during his first incarceration, Moroz taught modern Ukrainian history before his arrest in August 1965.

"He is a first-class scholar and leader, a symbol of the Ukrainian dissident movement," Omeljan Pritsak, Hrushevsikyi Professor of Ukrainian History and director of the Institute, said Saturday.

Pritsak, who was directly involved in bringing the matter to Bok's attention, said Saturday the University consulted several U.S. government officials before sending the initial invitation. In particular, Pritsak said Dean Rosovsky asked then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger whether inviting Moroz would be a "reasonable step" in the light of U.S.-Soviet relations. Kissinger replied that it was something that should be tried and pursued, Pritsak said.

Rosovsky said yesterday that "it was not impossible" that he had discussed the matter with Kissinger but could not remember any specific conversations. Kissinger could not be reached for comment.

Zbigniew Brzezinski, national security advisor to President Carter, who reportedly helped negotiate the prisoner exchange with Soviet Ambassador Anatoly F. Dobrynin, served on the visiting committee to the Ukrainian Studies Institute until he left to join the administration in 1977.

In a March 15, 1977 letter. Sevcenko reminded Brzezinski of Carter's campaign statement of October 8, 1976: "I will not turn my back on Valentyn Moroz."

Carter and Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev were involved in the negotiations leading to Moroz's release, reports said yesterday.

Chemych said yesterday approximately $50,000 in USF funds has been set aside for Moroz's salary and for living expenses for hism and his family (who are expected to join him in the United States in the next few days).

The USF has contributed "well over $3 million" to the Institute since it was founded in 1973, Chemych said.

"We would have preferred that Moroz could have come in 1974 when he was invited, but thank God he has been released," he added