West to Freedom

For half an hour the five Communist seamen soaked up the intriguing sights at Klein's, a big, crowded low-price store on Manhattan's Union Square. Reluctantly, they edged toward the door through the noontime jam. Just before they got outside, one of the sightseers asked his buddies to wait a moment; he wanted to buy some hair tonic. He elbowed back through the crush--and set his course for another exit. Once in the street, he started running. He had no destination, only a direction: west. Victor Jaanimets, 29, Soviet seaman from Estonia, wanted to put all the distance he could between himself and his ship, the Russian liner Baltika, which brought Khrushchev to the U.N.

Comrades & Spies. Jaanimets ran himself breathless; then he tried to hail a taxi. He could not make himself under stood, either in Estonian or in broken Russian. Desperately he called another cab. This time he got a ride downtown.

A few minutes later the frightened sailor walked into the White Rose Tavern on Whitehall Street. Almost everyone in the bar was too busy watching the World Series on TV to help. When a ship's cook named Brian Quinn finally gave him a hand, Jaanimets figured he had found a friend. In a mixture of pidgin English, Russian and Estonian, Jaanimets got his message across: he was an Estonian sailor who did not want to go back to Russia. Quinn, who has a couple of Estonian friends, knew what to do. He called the Estonia Relief Committee, let Jaanimets talk on the phone to someone in his own language, then led him to the place.

Taken in tow by the International Rescue Committee, Jaanimets at last felt safe. He had planned his break for three years, he explained, but all Soviet merchant mariners must take their shore leaves in groups and are ordered to keep an eye on each other. Jaanimets had been trusted to work outside Estonia only because he was just nine when the Russians occupied his country and was then considered free from contamination by the pre-Soviet regime. For three years he waited patiently for Baltika to put in at a U.S. port.

Another Hitler. Reassured by U.S. immigration authorities, Jaanimets stubbornly rebuffed Soviet diplomats who tried to get him to change his mind. "Khrushchev is hated where I come from," Jaanimets said. "All of us are under his iron fist. There is no freedom anywhere. We are his slaves. He is another Hitler." Half of Baltika's crew, Jaanimets insisted, would have jumped ship with him if they had had the chance.

Baltika's officers seemed to agree with Jaanimets. Passenger Khrushchev tried to make light of the incident ("If he asked me, I would have given him money to use until he found a job"), but sailors armed with rifles began to pace Baltika's decks, and shore leaves were canceled.

Jaanimets. who was granted political asylum, could only guess what reprisals might be aimed at his mother, four brothers and sister, who still live in Estonia. But he did not regret his decision. "I am not a man of speeches," he said. "I did it that I should no longer be encaged." At week's end Baltika sailed away, with out Jaanimets and without Khrushchev & Co., who had already gone home by turboprop. Instead, Baltika had a new car go: three cars (Cadillac, Oldsmobile, Comet), TV sets, air conditioners and a seven-ton truckload of capitalist loot for VIPs to take back.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.