mclure@SRI-UNIX@sri-unix (06/10/82)
MOSCOW (AP) - Chess grandmaster Viktor Korchnoi will be reunited
with his family next week, six years after he defected from the Soviet
Union.
Bella Korchnoi, 51, said she and her 23-year-old son, Igor, have
been granted permission to leave the Soviet Union, and need only to
pick up their visas and buy tickets to join Korchnoi at his home in
Switzerland.
''I'm just so happy. I don't have any other thoughts right now,''
Mrs. Korchnoi said in a telephone interview from her home in
Leningrad.
She and her son have been denied permission to emigrate five times
since Korchnoi defected in 1976, Mrs. Korchnoi said.
Igor Korchnoi was released from a prison camp last month after
serving a 30-month sentence for resisting induction into the Soviet
armed forces. Soviet authhorities have used previous military service
as a reason for denying emigration applications, alleging that former
soldiers had access to secrets.
Korchnoi has tried twice without success to wrest the world chess
championship title from Soviet grandmaster Anatoly Karpov, most
recently last year in Italy.
ap-ny-06-10 0216EDT
**********arnold (06/19/82)
Korchnoi will be training Seirawan from his new home in New York./N Seirawan recently beat Karpov the World Champion in a London Tournament.EOT