Gorbachev’s Power Poses Danger, Sakharov Warns

Andrei D. Sakharov, the Nobel laureate and noted human rights activist, said here Friday that Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev is moving to centralize power in his country to such an extent that “it is tantamount to a coup.”

The thermonuclear physicist, making his first visit to the United States, said he believes that Gorbachev is seizing power “out of good intentions,” but added, “I still consider it a serious problem.

“I think it is a dangerous new development. You could envision several scenarios which could lead to catastrophe,” Sakharov said during a wide-ranging two-hour discussion with members of Helsinki Watch in New York.

The group, founded in 1979 to monitor compliance with the human rights provisions of the 1975 Helsinki accords, has been active in working to free political prisoners in the Soviet Union.

The meeting with the tall, stoop-shouldered scientist was an extraordinary emotional reunion for former dissidents who were in the room. When the 67-year-old physicist arrived, smiling, he was given a standing ovation.

“I and a lot of you in the room have a hero,” proclaimed Robert L. Bernstein, chairman of the U.S. Helsinki Watch Committee.

Sakharov’s trip to the United States came less than two years after he was permitted to return to Moscow from exile in the remote Soviet city of Gorky, where he was banished because of his opposition to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. Traveling without his wife, Yelena Bonner, he is visiting as part of a Soviet delegation to a meeting of the International Foundation for the Survival and Development of Humanity, as well as undergoing medical tests and visiting relatives in Boston.

On Friday, Sakharov, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1975, once again underlined his opposition to the Soviet involvement in Afghanistan, where Moscow is supporting the Kabul regime against a U.S.-backed insurgency. Sakharov said that the United States, before agreeing to attend an international human rights conference in Moscow in 1991, should demand “cessation of the war in Afghanistan and the withdrawal of Soviet troops.” The Soviets have promised to withdraw the last of their troops by Feb. 15.

“I always thought the fact the Soviet government is engaged in this war has a very serious element of the violation of human rights and is a very important issue,” Sakharov said, speaking through a translator.

He said a second key condition to attending the conference should be the release of all people who are “prisoners of conscience.” The Soviets have also promised to free all political prisoners, but their prisoner count is much smaller than that of Western human rights groups.

Sakharov told members of the Helsinki Watch Committee that he is concerned that the Supreme Soviet, his nation’s Parliament, is being reorganized with the creation of an inner chamber of about 400 representatives. The inner chamber’s head, expected to be Gorbachev, would have enormous powers.

“The chairman of this Supreme Soviet will have more power than the President of the United States,” he said. “Between sessions, the chairman would be able to issue legislative decrees not subject to approval.”

Sakharov said the arrangement represents an attempt by Gorbachev to concentrate power and break resistance to reform. But such centralization of power, Sakharov added, in other situations could lead to catastrophe.

Later, addressing a standing-room-only joint meeting of the New York Academy of Sciences and the Committee of Concerned Scientists at an elegant Manhattan townhouse, the Soviet physicist expanded on his view of perestroika, the political and economic restructuring under way in his homeland.

Sakharov said he viewed perestroika “with great hope and a lot of excitement . . . but with a lot of fear as well.”

“We are all watching that process,” he said. “I hope that representatives of the scientific community here share my sentiments and will closely watch the unfolding of events in the Soviet Union as they have done in the previous decade. I have already said in front of many audiences that perestroika needs support, however . . . support of a sober and demanding type.

“Gorbachev should be helped, but critically,” he told the scientists. “We should not think that all of the problems have been solved. Many of them remain.”

“The goal of perestroika is to reach a higher technological level,” he continued. “One of the reasons it was launched in the first place was the fact that it was impossible for our country to keep up with technological progress.

“We should not be afraid of the success of perestroika but of the possible failure. The failure of perestroika, the victory of a party of reactionary forces, would mean . . . the pendulum would inevitably swing the other way,” he added.

Sakharov chose his words carefully. “We are at a turning point in our history,” he said.

Sakharov’s discussion with members of the Helsinki Watch Committee gathered in the board room of Random House, the publishing firm, ranged over such topics as how to distinguish political prisoners from ordinary criminals, his philosophy of advocacy in a nation where advocacy can be highly dangerous, and worrisome changes in the Soviet criminal code.

He said that important changes are under way in revising Soviet laws, but “it is not clear who is drafting the new legal codes.”

“I hope most of the political prisoners--prisoners of conscience--will soon be released,” the physicist told the meeting of about 50 human rights activists. “But the new decrees and laws are resulting in new arrests. . . . I am not sure the arrests will be followed up by prosecution or whether they are temporary detainees. But there are reasons for alarm.”

When it was over, Sakharov sat smiling amid supporters at the conference table.

He was asked how he liked the United States so far.

“The impressions are great--magnificent,” he said.

Times New York Bureau researcher Eileen V. Quigley contributed to this story.