And Naum Meiman. a 76year old mathematician who lost his wife Inna in February. has done nothing of a classified nature for over 30 years. These facts lead to one conclusionthat secrecy is the pretext. not the reason. why these people. many with close relatives abroad. are forced to wander perpetually between a world they cannot leave and a world they cannot enter. Perhaps a new level of callousness. or absurdity. was reached just last week. when Benjamin Charny was again refused an exit visa to join his brother in the United States. where he wants to receive treatment for cancer and for a heart condition which has caused two heart attacks. Despite the merit of his case on humanitarian and even legal grounds (it meets the strictist criteria of the new Soviet legislation). the Deputy Chief of the Moscow Office of Visas and Registration told Charny just eight days ago that he should not reapply until 1995 when by actuarial probability he will be dead. The reason for refusal was Charnys work as a mathematician on the Soviet civil space program in the 1960s. Charny ceased this work 18 years ago. meanwhile. in 1981. a colleague who had done the same work in the same office was allowed to emigrate. The irony and tragedy of this case speak for themselves. Mr.
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