The Fromson File

RUSSIA WAS AND RUSSIA IS: The story in the morning New York Times described the desperation of a Russian father, attempting to learn more about his two sons who apparently were among the wounded in the February 6th bombing of a Moscow subway. At least 39 people were killed and 130 were wounded in what authorities said was a terrorist attack by Chechnya rebels. When Vasily Mandazhe and other family members tried to enter the hospital where most of the wounded were being treated, they were turned away. One woman pleaded with a guard to take her hand and lead her to the injured, but he pushed her away. “I don’t want your hand,” he said. Once again, the sad truth of a country supposedly in the midst of change still is one where access to information is considered a privilege, not a right. In 1972, shortly after I first arrived in Moscow to take up my post as the CBS News correspondent, a Soviet airliner with more than 160 passengers on board crashed on the edge of Sheremetyava Airport. All aboard, mostly French citizens, were killed. But French Embassy officials were rebuffed when they attempted to obtain a list of passengers. Reporters also were unable to get any information. Later, we learned from a foreign airline representative that a truck had been dispatched to the crash site and soldiers or police collected the victims’ remains, shoveled them into the back of the truck and vanished. No attempt was made to notify next of kin. Months later, an anguished Soviet professor in Siberia who had sent his daughter to Moscow to attend the state university there, had not heard from her in more than two weeks since escorting her to the airport. He questioned police for information and hit a roadblock. He checked Aeroflot, the only domestic airliner then in existence and again, he was rebuffed. He flew to the Soviet capital, where he discovered that the plane carrying his daughter had crashed and she was among the passengers who were killed. The airline had not bothered to inform the family. Since none of the Soviet newspapers had reported the story, the professor had no way of knowing what had happened. A year passed and my language teacher who was studying at Moscow State University told me of a condolence notice that had been posted on a bulletin board outside one of his classrooms. The notice actually had been sent to the widow of a distinguished professor. What it did not say was that he had been killed in a plane crash near the Black Sea city of Odessa. News of the crash appeared in a local newspaper several days later, but the story contained none of the crash victims’ names. Russia truly may change some day, but in many ways what was still is.