Soviet Wife to Join U.S. Spouse

SAN FRANCISCO — Soviet emigration officials have told Sonia Melnikova-Eichenwald that she can leave the country, ending years of refusals, her American husband, Michael Lavigne, said today.

Melnikova-Eichenwald, an architect, had sought permission to emigrate since 1978. She and Lavigne, who lives in San Francisco, were married in Moscow on April 25, 1985, and he worked briefly as a nanny and an embassy officer in order to stay in the Soviet Union. Both are Jewish.