Bonner Gets Ticket for Monday Flight to Rome, Official Says

MOSCOW â€”  The ailing wife of Soviet dissident Andrei D. Sakharov picked up her ticket Friday for a Dec. 2 Alitalia flight to Rome, an Aeroflot spokesman said.

Yelena Bonner, who was granted permission by the Soviet government last month to travel to Italy and the United States for treatment of eye and heart ailments, “came in herself and collected the tickets today,� the spokesman said.

Bonner’s family reported earlier in Boston that she had won an argument with Soviet authorities who refused to list the United States as a destination on her passport.

“At first when she got her passport, the only destination specified in the passport was Italy,� said her son-in-law, Efrem Yankelevich, in a telephone interview from his home in suburban Newton. “But then after an argument of a few hours, they changed the records and now she has a passport for both Italy and the (United) States.�

An Italian diplomat confirmed that when a representative of Bonner picked up her visa last Wednesday, the only destination marked at that time in her passport was Italy. It was not known when the change was made.

Bonner left Gorky on Tuesday and returned to her Moscow apartment, which has been vacant and guarded by police for much of the time since Sakharov was exiled to Gorky in 1980 for his outspoken views.

Bonner traveled between Moscow and Gorky at first but in 1984, was convicted of anti-Soviet slander and sentenced to five years of internal exile in Gorky.

Bonner will leave Moscow for Rome on Monday and spend five days in Italy for eye treatments before flying to Boston for heart by-pass surgery, Yankelevich said.

“It is difficult to say exactly when she will be (in Boston), but it should be Dec. 7,� he said.

As a condition for permission to travel abroad, Bonner agreed not to talk with journalists while outside the Soviet Union.