Unrepentant Sakharov returns to Moscow

Press, 24 December 1986, Page 6

Unrepentant Sakharov returns to Moscow

NZPA-Reuter Moscow The Soviet physicist, Andrei Sakharov, returned to Moscow yesterday after almost seven years of internal exile and thanked his fellow-scien-tists, his family and world opinion for working for his release.

“Of course I am very satisfied, very satisfied,” Mr Sakharov told Western reporters who besieged him after he arrived by train from Gorky, some 400 km east of Moscow. “This became possible thanks to such great international protection. All these seven years, scientists, statesmen and public figures, and simply friends, have defended me.

“My children have defended me, and finally my wife has defended me,” said Mr Sakharov, aged 65, the Nobel Peace laureate in 1975. Asked if he would continue to speak out on public issues, Mr Sakharov said: “Yes. We also have to fight for freedom of choice and other human rights.”

Mr Sakharov spent some 40 minutes with reporters in the early mom-

ing winter cold, while his wife, Yelena Bonner, who has a heart condition, went ahead to rest in a car in which two friends later drove them to their apartment in the capital. Questioned on his health, Mr Sakharov replied: “Of course I’m not a healthy man, but in comparison with my wife

He added that his own heart condition had improved slightly.

Asked if he would seek a discussion with the Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, he said: “I want to have a rest and

then get on with my scientific work before I seek any such meetings.”

Mr Gorbachev personally telephoned Mr Sakharov last Thursday to inform him that he was being freed from internal exile in Gorky, where he was banished by special decree in January, 1980.

Mr Sakharov was greeted by about 200 foreign reporters and members of the old Soviet dissident community at the railway station at 7 a.m.

He looked tired but insisted on speaking to the reporters, whom he thanked for “not forgetting us while we were in exile”.

Miss Bonner, aged 63, who was also reprieved from a five-year term of internal exile to which she was sentenced in August, 1984, for antiSoviet activities, walked on ahead.

“It is his day, not mine,” she told reporters. There was no sign of K.G.B. security police at the station, and there were few uniformed police present. Mr Sakharov, who became the figurehead of

the short-lived Soviet dissident movement of the 19705, said he was pained by the death in prison earlier this month of his fellow activist, Anatoly Marchenko. “I cannot free myself from (the memory of) Anatoly Marchenko,” he said. Mr Sakharov said he wanted to resume work at the Academy of Sciences. He retained his membership of the academy despite his term of exile. He also has standing invitations to travel to a number of Western countries, but has indicated that he would prefer to continue to live and work in his homeland. Mr Gorbachev has previously said Mr Sakharov cannot leave the Soviet Union because his scientific work made him privy to State secrets. Mr Sakharov, questioned on the Soviet role in Afghanistan, said: “I consider this to be the most painful point of our foreign policy and I hope that more decisive measures will be taken in this area than are being taken at present.”

Mr Sakharov was banished to Gorky soon after he criticised the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan.

Describing his life in Gorky, he said: “For the last seven months my wife and I have not had a chance to speak to another living soul. Well, one or two people came and we were allowed to speak to them on the street

“It is a miracle that we were even allowed to speak on the street ... In general, we were totally isolated from other people.”