Kennedy, in Moscow, Hails Sakharov : Senator Meets With Gorbachev After Talk to Science Academy

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy praised Andrei D. Sakharov at a meeting of the dissident’s former scientific colleagues today, then met with Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

Tass press agency said only that Gorbachev “has had a conversation” with the Massachusetts Democrat, giving no details. Kennedy said in his address to the Soviet Academy of Sciences before the meeting that he intended to bring up his concerns about arms control.

Kennedy, in his speech to the academy--of which Sakharov still is a member although he now is in internal exile--outlined possible U.S.-Soviet cooperation to overcome the nuclear threat.

He pointed to the November summit in Geneva between Gorbachev and President Reagan as evidence of “new rays of hope” in superpower relations, and said the two nations “stand on the verge of a decisive breakthrough.”

‘Broad Outline’ of Pact

“It is now possible to visualize the broad outline of a worthwhile, even historic, agreement on nuclear arms control between the United States and the Soviet Union,” Kennedy told about 40 members of the academy assembled in an ornate conference room. “Let both sides have the wisdom and the perseverance not to let this moment slip away.”

Praising scientists’ work for peace, Kennedy said, “We felt a genuine satisfaction last fall, when the 1985 Nobel Prize for Peace was awarded to the international physicians for the prevention of nuclear war.” An American and a Soviet scientist are co-chairmen of the group.

“I also pay tribute here to another eminent Nobel laureate, the first Soviet citizen to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, a member of your academy, Dr. Andrei Sakharov,” Kennedy said. “The indispensable value of science is its ability to speak truth to power.”

Audience Looked Serious

There was no visible reaction to Kennedy’s remarks. The faces of his listeners looked serious but emotionless throughout the speech.

Sakharov, 64, won the 1973 peace prize for his work in the field of human rights. He was banished to the closed city of Gorky in January, 1980, after denouncing the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan.

He was a leading scientist until the 1970s, when he began campaigning for human rights and against the nuclear weapons he had helped create, but he has lost all honors and privileges except his membership in the academy.