Sakharov Calls for More Trust in Gorbachev

Andrei D. Sakharov, who won the Nobel Peace Prize for his defense of human rights in the Soviet Union, called Friday for greater trust in Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev, in his reform policies and in his commitment to broaden democracy and increase respect for human rights.

“An expression of trust in perestroika at this time would encourage it and also improve the human rights situation,” Sakharov said, strongly endorsing Gorbachev’s ambitious program of political, economic and social reform.

“We should even give an advance measure of confidence in (its observance of) human rights,” he said. “I believe that, as time goes on, there will be even further improvements.”

Speaking at an unprecedented 90-minute news conference at the government press center, Sakharov said that “sizable changes have taken place” recently in the Soviet Union. And he credited Gorbachev with breaking away from the Stalinism that had gripped the country for so long.

“Mikhail Gorbachev is an outstanding statesman, and one of the chief architects of perestroika , one of the big doers in perestroika ,” Sakharov said. “From the bottom of my heart, I wish success for the cause with which his name is associated.”

But Sakharov, a nuclear physicist who has been the spiritual father of political dissent here for two decades, said he had renounced none of his views, and he called forthrightly for wider human rights for Soviet citizens.

He seemed almost to be the leader of the Kremlin’s “loyal opposition” as he addressed a packed news conference in the same hall where Gorbachev had spoken earlier in the week. His strong support for Gorbachev is likely to have a major impact here and abroad.

‘A Decisive Stage’

“We are at a decisive stage for perestroika , and the situation is very contradictory, very complicated and even dangerous,” Sakharov said, expressing his concern that opposition among conservative party and government bureaucrats could cripple Gorbachev’s reforms.

“I believe that by my activities I am also helping perestroika ,” he said in his appeal for broader support for Gorbachev among those who, with him, have long criticized Communist Party rule here.

The news, however, lay as much in the news conference itself as in what the 67-year-old scientist said. For years Sakharov had been denounced by the government as a mouthpiece for the West for questioning Communist Party rule and championing human rights here. When he received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1975, he was branded a traitor to his country. He was sent into internal exile in 1980, for condemning Soviet intervention in Afghanistan, and was allowed to return to Moscow only 18 months ago.

“That I find myself here reflects a change in this country,” he said, “and not as a result of my having changed my position.”

Publication Expected

Sakharov, who has resumed work at the Soviet Academy of Science, has been lionized in the politically avant-garde weekly Moscow News. Quoted by other Soviet newspapers as well, he now expects to have some of his political works published here soon--works that nearly 20 years ago raised many of the same questions that Gorbachev has posed and proposed some of the same solutions.

When a reporter for ABC News asked whether Sakharov had agreed to government limitations on the news conference or was given the opportunity to address more than 200 Soviet and foreign journalists because of his support for government positions, the scientist’s wife, Yelena Bonner, replied angrily:

“Has Sakharov changed, or not? Has he been bought, or not? Neither he nor I can be bought, here or in Gorky (where he spent the years in exile), and we will never be bought.”

Sakharov said he had agreed to no conditions for the news conference, set up because of hundreds of requests for interviews during the U.S.-Soviet summit meeting this week, and that none had been proposed by the Foreign Ministry’s information department.

Travel Ban Continues

And whatever his position might be, he said, the government still refuses to allow him to travel abroad, citing his former access to military secrets.

“Personally, I believe it is not a matter of my former access to secret information,” he said. “It is a matter of confidence in me.”

As government officials listened, Sakharov uncompromisingly laid out what he believes should be Gorbachev’s human rights agenda.

Although the changes of the past three years have been substantial, much remains to be done, particularly to ensure the full implementation of the Soviet government’s pledges on human rights, he said.

The country’s remaining political prisoners must be freed and pardoned, he went on, listing 20 people he said are still in jail or in internal exile. Their immediate release, he said, would demonstrate the regime’s good faith in pledging to improve observance of human rights here.

Protester Still Jailed

Among the prisoners, he noted, is one he identified as Milanov, “who was jailed because he took part in a protest when I was exiled to the city of Gorky. . . . He is still there because he refuses to ask for a pardon.”

He also cited the case of Sergei Kovalyov, a biologist and former political prisoner, who spoke at the meeting President Reagan had with dissidents here this week and was told the next day that he would not get a promised job at a Moscow scientific institute.

“This is a crying example of old methods being used,” Sakharov said. “The speeches that he and others made at the Reagan meeting were perfectly loyal and legal, and they supported the positive changes in our country. . . . This is a revival of the past and a direct challenge to those (in the U.S. government) who arranged the meeting.”

He said that such persecution of dissidents must cease and that constitutionally guaranteed freedom of religious belief must be honored. In particular, he called for legalization of the Ukrainian Catholic Uniate Church, which was outlawed 30 years ago. And he said that past injustices, such as the forced resettlement of the Crimean Tatars, must be put right.

Jury Trials Urged

Political prisoners already freed should be fully rehabilitated and their original convictions quashed, he said, and the criminal code should be revised to eliminate clauses under which dissidents were imprisoned in the past for “anti-Soviet activities.”

Those accused of crimes should have the right to jury trial rather than having their cases heard only by state judges, he said, and the penal system must be reformed to improve the conditions of prisoners and to prevent abuses of human rights inside prisons.

“Much of this can be done right now, without new legislation, and there is every reason to do so,” he said. “The nation is waiting. The world is waiting.”

Although Gorbachev objected to American pressure on human rights issues during his talks with President Reagan this week, Sakharov said that such concern is helpful.

“I do not believe the fact that the U.S. President and the American public are interested in human rights in this country can be described as pressure,” he said. “It is only natural concern that arises from the (1975) Helsinki agreements linking international security with human rights. It should not, and it will not, harm Gorbachev’s policies.”

Disappointment Voiced

Sakharov, who was a member of the team that developed Soviet nuclear weapons in the 1950s, expressed disappointment that Gorbachev and Reagan had failed to reach agreement here on a 50% reduction in their countries’ nuclear arsenals.

While their meeting was “important in promoting an atmosphere of trust, the results were not as impressive as those in Washington six months ago,” he said.

Moscow and Washington, however, should be able to reach agreement on the proposed cuts, he said, and added that the “difficulties can be overcome with political will.”

Sakharov also called for a 50% reduction in conventional arms and the establishment of a demilitarized zone in Central Europe to help build mutual confidence by making surprise attack more difficult.

His opposition to Soviet intervention in Afghanistan remains firm--”It was a major mistake,” he said--and he said the withdrawal, begun last month, should continue despite the increased attacks by Muslim rebels on the government in Kabul and the retreating Soviet forces.