Bush, Reagan and Thatcher Pay Tribute

President Bush, in a message of condolence, praised Andrei D. Sakharov’s courage and devotion to freedom Friday and said the Nobel Peace Prize winner was an example of goodness and decency.

“All of us who knew him will never forget his courage and devotion to freedom. During the darkest hours of his struggle for human rights in the Soviet Union he embodied all that is good and decent in the human spirit,” Bush said in a message to Sakharov’s widow, Yelena Bonner.

According to White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater, Bush also cited Sakharov’s recent efforts in the Soviet Congress to expand political freedom.

Former President Ronald Reagan, who exchanged views on human rights with Sakharov during an emotional November, 1988, meeting in the White House, issued the following statement:

“Andrei Sakharov was a man of great principle and a true general in the fight for human rights. His courage, his eloquence and his unshakable belief in the dignity of man was an inspiration to us all. Now, as his vision of freedom for all mankind begins to become a reality, we mourn his passing but take comfort in knowing that his work and spirit will live on forever.”

In London, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher who met often with the human rights champion said fate had been cruel to Sakharov, who died just as his dream for a more democratic Soviet Union seemed within grasp.

In Gdansk, Poland, Solidarity leader Lech Walesa said Sakharov’s death was a blow for the pro-democracy movement.

In Jerusalem, Foreign Minister Moshe Arens said Sakharov, a non-Jew, will always be remembered for helping Soviet Jews fight for the right to emigrate.

Natan Sharansky, former refusenik and prisoner of conscience who, with Sakharov, represented the most visible symbol of the fight for freedom in the pre -perestroika Soviet Union, said the Jewish world had lost one of its best friends.