Lawsuits: Squeezing the Kremlin

• Share

California Businessman Raphael Gregorian had done what many American lawyers had said was impossible. First he sued the Soviet Union, accusing it of falsely branding him a spy in a 1984 report in Izvestia, the Soviet government newspaper, and of reneging on a medical-supplies contract. Then in June 1986 a U.S. federal court ordered Izvestia and the Soviet Union to pay Gregorian $413,000 plus interest for libel and equipment losses. The Soviets ignored the decree. Last week, armed with a subpoena, Gregorian's lawyer Gerald Kroll began impounding Izvestia property. In Chevy Chase, Md., Kroll seized a typewriter, a television set and other items from the home of the paper's Washington correspondent. The goods are worth only about $5,000, but "we would have done it even if we recovered only 10 cents," said Kroll. His next targets: local offices of the Soviet news agency TASS and Soviet funds in U.S. banks.