Sakharov at 65: Hailed in West, Non-Person at Home

Dissident Soviet physicist Andrei D. Sakharov on Wednesday was remembered in the West on the occasion of his 65th birthday, but in his native country, he remains in lonely exile.

For more than six years, Sakharov, who won medals and acclaim for helping to develop the Soviet hydrogen bomb, has been exiled to the provincial city of Gorky, about 250 miles east of Moscow.

Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev has said that Sakharov was sent to Gorky for breaking some unspecified law. But much of the world believes that he was silenced for being too effective an advocate of human rights--a role that won him the 1975 Nobel Peace Prize.

Gorky is closed to foreign visitors, and Sakharov has no telephone in his apartment. According to unofficial Soviet sources, he is in relatively good health, better than last fall when he was recovering from the effects of a four-month hunger strike.

The official news agency Tass, in a rare mention of Sakharov, said last December that he had had a medical checkup and that the doctors pronounced him sound, with no physical problems other than those associated with age.

Sakharov could look forward to a visit this weekend from his daughter by a first marriage, Tatyana, and a favorite granddaughter, Marina, who is a first-year student at Moscow State University.

Sakharov’s wife, Yelena Bonner, has been out of the country for heart surgery and eye care in the United States and Italy. She was expected to return to Gorky early in June. She says Sakharov has fended for himself in her absence, mopping the kitchen floor, shopping and preparing his own food.

She has said that radio reception in their apartment is jammed, but that he goes on occasion to the edge of the city and tunes in Western broadcasts to keep up with world affairs.

Sakharov Day in U.S.

If Sakharov was listening Wednesday, he would have heard that in the United States, May 21 was proclaimed National Andrei D. Sakharov Day. In West Germany and Britain, government officials asked that he be released from exile and allowed to live where he chooses, either in the Soviet Union or abroad.

As usual, Sakharov’s birthday was ignored in the state-run Soviet press. He is virtually a non-person here, although he retains his membership in the Academy of Sciences.

Guards are posted in the vestibule of Sakharov’s apartment building, according to Soviet sources, to regulate his visitors. He jokingly classifies them as “intellectuals” or “musicians,” depending on whether they read detective stories or listen to broadcast music to pass the time, one source said.

Reads Scientific Journals

One of his favorite pastimes is reading scientific journals, his wife has said. In addition, since he holds the title of “academician,” he may order Soviet books by mail from the big Academy of Sciences bookstore in Moscow.

But his extensive collection of magazines from the United States and other Western countries was seized in a search of the apartment two years ago, Bonner has said.

In the six months his wife has been abroad, Sakharov has been allowed to receive telephone calls from her and other family members. He must go to a special telephone center where hidden equipment records their conversations, according to Bonner.

Film showing Sakharov at the telephone has been made available in the West, presumably with the aid of security officials who hope to show that he is leading a normal life.

Bonner, in an article written for the Washington Post, said of her husband: “It is difficult for him to be alone. . . . Sometimes he lacks the physical strength to cope.”