Sakharovs Freed From Gorky Exile : Dissidents Will Be Allowed to Return to Home in Moscow

Andrei D. Sakharov, the noted physicist who came to symbolize the victims of human rights abuses in the Soviet Union, has been released from seven years of exile in the closed city of Gorky and will be allowed to return to Moscow with his wife, Yelena Bonner, the Kremlin announced Friday.

Bonner, who had been exiled to Gorky for alleged anti-Soviet activity, was pardoned, the government said.

The surprise announcement on the new status of the internationally famous dissident couple was made by Vladimir F. Petrovsky, first deputy foreign minister, at a news conference.

According to reports here, Tatiana Yankelevich, Bonner’s daughter by a previous marriage, said at her home in Newton, Mass., that Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev personally informed Sakharov of the decision to allow him and Bonner to return to Moscow.

Wednesday Phone Call

Yankelevich said she and her husband, Efrem, were informed of the Kremlin’s decision in a telephone call from the Sakharovs on Wednesday.

Tatiana Yankelevich was quoted as saying that the news was “the best Christmas, New Year’s or Hanukkah present we ever had.” Bonner is Jewish but Sakharov is not.

There was no indication when Sakharov, 65, and Bonner, 63, would return to their Moscow apartment. However, family friends in Moscow said their return would likely be sometime next week.

No Word on Conditions

There was also no immediate word here on whether any conditions were attached to their release from exile, although the announcement, as transmitted by the news agency Tass, said that “Sakharov has the possibility to actively join academic life now. . . .”

Efrem Yankelevich was quoted as saying there were no conditions to Sakharov’s release. “He will have the opportunity to say anything he wants by himself,” Yankelevich said, according to the reports. But the Yankeleviches also indicated they are not so sure that Sakharov will be able to speak out as fully as he might like.

“He will (meet the Moscow press corps) but what he says depends on whether he will be allowed (to speak out),” Tatiana Yankelevich was quoted as saying.

Efrem Yankelevich said Sakharov quoted Gorbachev as saying the eminent scientist could “go back to patriotic work” doing physics research.

One of the major indications that a change was coming about was related to the family by Bonner, Tatiana Yankelevich said, “She (Bonner) said the only change they noticed right away (was that) on Wednesday morning the policeman who has been outside the door of their Gorky apartment 24 hours a day for the last seven years was not there anymore.”

New Telephone

The family said they received the call from a new telephone installed in the Gorky apartment. Previously, the Sakharovs had to use a telephone in a nearby post office to speak with family members in the United States.

Reports of the Kremlin decision broadcast on Soviet radio and television said that Sakharov would be able to take part in activities at the prestigious Academy of Sciences, in which he retains his membership. And in Washington, Soviet Ambassador Yuri V. Dubinin said that Sakharov would regain his “full rights as a Soviet citizen.”

However, Dubinin, answering questions about Sakharov at a news conference he called to discuss the Soviet decision to resume nuclear testing, would not respond specifically when he was asked if Sakharov would be free to speak publicly and publish his opinions.

In the recent past, Sakharov has said he would refrain from public activities if he could return to the Soviet capital.

Controlled Nuclear Fusion

Sakharov displayed his scientific brilliance at an early age, and, along with physicist Igor Tamm, proved in 1950 the theoretical laws of controlled nuclear fusion--the key to the hydrogen bomb.

In 1953, the Soviets exploded a primitive nuclear device, their first. Later that year, Sakharov was admitted to the Academy of Sciences at the unheard of age of 32.

The rewards were staggering. He was given an annual salary equivalent to almost $30,000 and joined the select few named three times as Hero of Socialist Labor. But to Sakharov, the awesome power he helped unleash brought with it awesome responsibilities.

Over the next decade, he drafted private memos against further nuclear tests. In 1961, he gave Soviet Premier Nikita S. Khrushchev a note warning of the dangers of breaking a moratorium that had stopped American and Soviet testing.

Sakharov at first kept his protests within the system, but gradually moved into open dissent that led to his exile.

By 1970, he and two other scientists had formed a committee on human rights.

Death of First Wife

At one human rights vigil, he met Bonner, a pediatrician. They were married in 1971, two years after the death of Sakharov’s first wife.

Labeled an egotist and a traitor, Sakharov eventually was stripped of all his prestigious awards, including his three prizes as a Hero of Socialist Labor, the nation’s top civilian award.

He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1975, but was barred from traveling to Norway to receive it. Sakharov nonetheless sent an acceptance speech that called for an end to repressive, totalitarian societies.

For years his special status protected him from arrest and other government harassment. But in January, 1980, Sakharov was exiled to the industrial city of Gorky, about 250 miles east of Moscow, for his activities on behalf of human rights causes in Moscow. Not long before his banishment, he had criticized the Soviet military intervention in Afghanistan.

No formal charges against him were ever made public nor was there a trial.

Anti-Soviet Slander

Bonner, joined him in Gorky, but she was able to return to Moscow on visits until 1984. In April of that year, she was restricted to Gorky and in August, she was convicted of anti-Soviet slander and sentenced to five years’ banishment there. She has now been pardoned by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, Friday’s announcement said.

The Sakharovs had complained of severe isolation and harassment by their KGB guards in Gorky despite official assurances they were living in “normal conditions.” Sakharov was subjected to force feeding during a long hunger strike last year and apparently suffered from heart problems as well.

Western Magazine Seized

Their library of Western magazines was seized in a search of their apartment in May, 1984, Bonner reported, and KGB agents secretly made films of them without their knowledge.

Despite her sentence of internal exile, Bonner was allowed a year ago to leave Gorky for six months to receive medical care in Italy and in the United States where she underwent a heart bypass operation. She returned to the Soviet Union last June.

Shortly after Gorbachev assumed power in March, 1985, Sakharov wrote to him and asked to be allowed to return to Moscow with his wife.

At that time, according to a July, 1985, letter, Sakharov said: “I desire to cease entirely taking part in any public activity--of course, apart from the most exceptional cases--and instead to concentrate on my scientific work.”

Yankelevich said that Sakharov wanted to speak out on such issues as President Reagan’s “Star Wars” program of space-based missile defenses, which Sakharov opposes, and nuclear disarmament, which he favors.

East-West Cooperation

Sakharov also wants to get involved in future East-West cooperation on a major nuclear fusion project, Yankelevich has said.

Gorbachev has said that Sakharov “still has knowledge of secrets of special importance to the state and for this reason cannot go abroad.” Sakharov has never applied to emigrate, but he has been refused permission to travel overseas on several occasions.

Friday’s announcement, as read over Soviet radio said that the Academy of Sciences and the Ministry of Internal Affairs had considered Sakharov’s request for an end to his exile.

“The fact that Academician Sakharov spent a prolonged period of time in Gorky was taken into account, and it was decided to permit Academician Sakharov to return to Moscow,” the news bulletin said.

“At the same time the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet pardoned citizen Bonner, and therefore she will be able to accompany Academician Sakharov on his return.

“Now Academician Sakharov will be able to participate actively in scientific activities of the Academy (of Sciences) in the Moscow setting,” the broadcast concluded.

Bonner’s son by her first marriage, Alexei Semyonov, 30, also lives in Massachusetts. Semyonov and the Yankeleviches emigrated in 1977, along with Bonner’s 86-year-old mother, Ruth.