Refugees: Good News for a Visiting Hero

Anatoli Shcharansky, 38, the Soviet dissident who was released by Moscow last February and permitted to emigrate to Israel, received a hero’s welcome to the U.S. last week. During his first American visit, Shcharansky, who spent nine years in Soviet prisons and work camps, is to meet President Reagan and other top American officials, as well as Soviet Human Rights Activist Yelena Bonner, who is currently recuperating from heart surgery in the U.S. But Shcharansky’s best news, disclosed on the eve of his visit, is that he and his wife Avital, 35, separated for so many years, are expecting their first child in the fall.