Word: sakharovs
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Medvedev's argument is directly opposed to that of Physicist Andrei Sakharov (TIME, Sept. 24), who has called for congressional passage of Senator Henry M. Jackson's amendment making most-favored-nation status in Soviet trade contingent upon free emigration. Medvedev praised Sakharov's "unquestionable courage" and denounced the "gross and unjust" harassment that the scientist has suffered from Soviet authorities. But Medvedev also suggested that Sakharov and Novelist Alexander Solzhenitsyn may unwittingly be aiding reactionaries within the Soviet leadership, who can seize on their declarations "to split and demoralize dissidents...
Medvedev's pragmatic view does not come as all that much of a surprise. While Sakharov apparently no longer even considers himself a socialist, Medvedev remains a committed Marxist-Leninist. Even though he was expelled from the Party in 1969 for his writings about Stalin, he is respected both by dissidents and many orthodox Communists. Shortly after Medvedev's expulsion, Soviet authorities tried to have his twin brother, Zhores, a brilliant biologist, declared insane for writing a critical book about Stalin's crackpot geneticist, T.D. Lysenko...
This became clear last week when two men, describing themselves as members of the Black September terrorist organization, personally delivered a stern warning to Sakharov at his Moscow apartment. The two demanded Sakharov's written opinion of the Middle East conflict and ominously informed him: "We'll report your views back to headquarters, and they'll decide what to do with you." The conversation, Sakharov later recounted to friends, got more tense as time went on. At one point, one of the men "jumped like a tiger" to the telephone, where Mrs. Sakharov was standing, and hastily...
...intruders did not specify what they meant but, vague as it was. Sakharov had good reason to take their warning seriously. This was the first incident of Arab terrorism known to have taken place in the Soviet Union, and it is probably no accident that it was directed against the Kremlin's most persistent gadfly. The timing was suspicious. A new barrage of anti-Sakharov articles has been appearing in Soviet journals, the first since early September. And there was recently a Soviet counter to a warning issued by the U.S. Academy of Sciences that any punishment of Sakharov...
...Sakharov reported the incident to the police, who sent four men to investigate. But since Sakharov's house is kept under government surveillance anyway, it seems highly unlikely that the intruders could have escaped official notice. While world public opinion probably keeps the Kremlin from persecuting Sakharov more actively, if it had wanted to give him a good fright it would have found the Arab threats extremely convenient...