At a news conference in New York on Saturday, Moroz said he had often been beaten by prison guards and was kept in solitary confinement in freezing weather for four months last year.
"It's not necessary for beatings to create horrible conditions. Conditions can be created to constitute torture even without physical violence," Moroz said.
In a statement read Saturday on behalf of Moroz, Kuznetsov, Ginzburg and Dymshits, the four dissidents said, "yesterday, we were still deprived of all rights; today, we are here in a country which for more than 200 years has been a symbol of freedom."
Moroz appeared "very emaciated and lean" and will undergo intensive medical testing over the next week, Sevcenko said. He added Moroz "expressed pleasure and astonishment that so many young people were interested in his scholarship."
Accompanied by four Harvard graduate students, Sevcenko spoke with Moroz yesterday afternoon at a memorial service at the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Bound Brook, N.J.
Best known for "A Report from the Beria Reservation," an account of prison life written during his first incarceration, Moroz taught modern Ukrainian history before his arrest in August 1965.
"He is a first-class scholar and leader, a symbol of the Ukrainian dissident movement," Omeljan Pritsak, Hrushevsikyi Professor of Ukrainian History and director of the Institute, said Saturday.
Pritsak, who was directly involved in bringing the matter to Bok's attention, said Saturday the University consulted several U.S. government officials before sending the initial invitation. In particular, Pritsak said Dean Rosovsky asked then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger whether inviting Moroz would be a "reasonable step" in the light of U.S.-Soviet relations. Kissinger replied that it was something that should be tried and pursued, Pritsak said.
Rosovsky said yesterday that "it was not impossible" that he had discussed the matter with Kissinger but could not remember any specific conversations. Kissinger could not be reached for comment.
Zbigniew Brzezinski, national security advisor to President Carter, who reportedly helped negotiate the prisoner exchange with Soviet Ambassador Anatoly F. Dobrynin, served on the visiting committee to the Ukrainian Studies Institute until he left to join the administration in 1977.
In a March 15, 1977 letter. Sevcenko reminded Brzezinski of Carter's campaign statement of October 8, 1976: "I will not turn my back on Valentyn Moroz."
Carter and Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev were involved in the negotiations leading to Moroz's release, reports said yesterday.
Chemych said yesterday approximately $50,000 in USF funds has been set aside for Moroz's salary and for living expenses for hism and his family (who are expected to join him in the United States in the next few days).
The USF has contributed "well over $3 million" to the Institute since it was founded in 1973, Chemych said.
"We would have preferred that Moroz could have come in 1974 when he was invited, but thank God he has been released," he added