Yuli Tartakovsky , a 27 year old Kiev engineer who had applied to leave the Soviet Union for Israel, may now be conscripted to the Red Army although he was previously exempted on the express orders of Soviet Defence Minister Marshal Grecho.
the officer who had originally informed Tartakovsky of the exemption told his mother two weeks ago that her son would now have to enter the Soviet armed forces. No reason was given for the change of attitude.
Six of Tartakovsky’s friends appealed tpo president Nixon to intervene shortly before his resignation. they said that the reason given by Tartakovsky in his letter to Grechko that he did not wish to serve in the army because of his strong desire to emigrate to Israel had not changed. In fact, they said, his motives were strengthened by the fact that his siter had now emigrated to Israel.
When the sister was given a visa, she was promised that members of her family wouold soon be able to join her.
a couple of months ago, Tartakovsky told friends that he believed that the KGB was preparing a case against him. he obviously had in mind the fate of his friend, Alexander Feldman, who was jailed for three and a half years on a trumped-up charge at the end of last year.
tartakovsky began to take precautions and visited his mother’s apartment only secretly. Militiamen called at the apartment a number of times in search of him.
On July 23, Tartakovsky’s mother, Esther and two of his friends, Kim Friedman and Ilya Zlobinsky, were called to the KGB. they were told that Yuli must give himself up to the conscription board otherwise both he and his mother would be charged with anti-Soviet activities. this specifically meant ‘contacts with foreign citizens and international Zionism’.
The KGB made Tartakovsky an offer through his mother. If he did not surrender to the conscription, no charges of anti-Sovietism would be pressed against him or his mother. Tartakovsky has to be report by Sunday.
Jerusalem Post 16 August 1974