American Notes EXILES

To fellow tourists on a package trip to the Soviet Union last November, Ted and Cheryl Branch were a mousy couple whose bumbling efforts to defect were met with dismay by their Russian tour guide. The pair spoke no Russian and had no jobs. By last week, when Soviet Foreign Ministry Spokesman Gennadi Gerasimov announced that the couple had been granted asylum, the Branches had become "specialists in mass communications."

Ted Branch, 43, had bounced through a feckless radio career, winding up in 1983 as an announcer and general manager for WBGB, a tiny station in Mount Dora, Fla. In 1985, shortly before WBGB went bankrupt, he left in a dispute over back pay. Branch could not find another full-time job on the air, and the couple somehow blamed the U.S. Government for failing to take up his cause. In November, Cheryl Branch told a fellow tour member, "I'm going to write a book. I'm going to expose all the things that are wrong in the American system."