Edward Kline, ‘Silent Partner’ in Aiding Soviet Dissidents, Dies at 85
Professor Cohen said in an email that he, Mr. Kline
and Mr. Chalidze "probably moved more forbidden literature out of and back into the Soviet Union, roughly starting in 1977, than any other individuals — Americans, at least." He added: "Until Moscow denied me an entry visa in 1982, we moved scores of samizdat typescripts out and Russian language books in.
Mr. Kline became the principal contact in the United States for Andrei D. Sakharov, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Russian physicist
and human rights campaigner who was confined in domestic exile in the Volga River city of Gorky, east of Moscow, from 1980 through 1986.
Ed was in New York City, but absolutely central to all of this, as funder, sponsor, enabler." Ms. Feuer, too, said
that while Mr. Kline may not have played as prominent a public role as other human rights advocates, he nonetheless left a profound legacy.
Mr. Kline also established Chekhov Publishing in New York, which printed books in Russian by Joseph Brodsky, Nadezhda Mandelstam
and other authors who were banned in the Soviet Union.
Stephen said that Ed was an unsung hero,
