Advice on Dissent

Sakharov speaks on detente

President Carter's policy pf sharply attacking human rights violations in the Soviet Union gained headlines, but did nothing to change the Kremlin's stamp-it-out approach to political dissent. In a thoughtful article published in a special February issue of Trialogue, the bulletin of the Trilateral Commission, Physicist Andrei Sakharov, father of the Soviet hydrogen bomb and leader of his country's beleaguered dissident movement, offers Carter some advice on how to persuade Moscow's leaders to improve their human rights record without damaging detente. Excerpts:

The Carter policy [on human rights] responds to the demands of our time, and it is very important that it receive even broader support. In the Western press, the thought has sometimes been expressed that the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks, in whose success the Soviet Union is interested, have opened up possibilities of applying pressure on the U.S.S.R. on the question of human rights. In my opinion, such a viewpoint is not correct.

I believe that the problem of lessening the danger of annihilating humanity in a nuclear war carries an absolute priority over all other considerations. I believe that the principle of practicably separating the questions of disarmament from other problems, as formulated by the Administration, is completely correct.

Another problem widely discussed in the Western press concerns the use of boycotts--Scientific, cultural, economic and so forth--as a means of applying pressure on the U.S.S.R. for the purpose of freeing at least some political prisoners. I welcome such boycotts as a means of expressing protest. However, the problem of boycotts is complex and contradictory.

The very traditions of a strong power do not allow the leaders of totalitarian states to react directly to pressure exerted against them. At the same time, boycotts weaken realistically useful contacts and diminish the number of levers that can be used to apply pressure in the future.

With a few rare exceptions, it is best to avoid boycotts with ultimatums. That is, it should not be indicated in an obvious manner that the boycott will cease only if the totalitarian regime undertakes certain concrete steps. In such a case, a boycott will create a situation in which the opposite side is pushed into a "dead end" whence itself without losing face.

I am also convinced of the necessity of combining various and impressive public campaigns with an energetic and thoughtful quiet diplomacy. The exchange of political prisoners can be an important area of action for quiet diplomacy. I do not accept the contentions against such exchanges that have been expressed in the West. In some cases, this is practically the only realistic way to tear people out of the hell of the camps and prisons. Even if this method can help only a very few people, still, it is a breakthrough, and it assuredly does not harm those who remain behind.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.