Table of Contents
Abstract v
Foreword to the English Edition vii
Preface: "Future is Undetermined. What Has Already Happened is All That Matters" xxi
Volume 1 From H-bomb to Nobel Peace Prize 1
Part I Beginnings: Family, Childhood, Education, Cartridge Factory Job in the Years of WWII, Pure Science (1921-1947) 3
Chapter 1 1921-1937 5
Parents, ancestors 5
Childhood and its epoch, physics experiments at home 11
Chapter 2 1938-1944 15
Moscow University, First Year of War in Ashkhabad in Central Asia 15
Cartridge factory, the first inventions, marriage to Klava Vikhireva, the birth of a daughter, summons to FLAN 19
Chapter 3 1945-1947 23
Igor Tamm, postgraduate studies, everyday affairs: "Papa's laughing", big science 23
Part II Bomb and Kremlin. 1948-1967 29
Chapter 4 1948-1950 31
American atomic bombings of Japan, the launch of a special group at FIAN, and the idea of Sloyka, "This is horrible, horrible! What am I doing ?!… Kurchatov sometimes said: 'we are soldiers' …" 31
The first visit to the nuclear Installation ("site"), co-workers, the birth of a second daughter, an apartment as "the first use of thermoelectric energy for peaceful purposes", meetings in the Kremlin - Sakharov's first miracle 40
Chapter 5 1950-1952 45
Permanent move to the Installation, Igor Tamm at the Installation, dissidents of the 1950s, co-workers about Sakharov, prisoners 45
Briefly about the history of the Holy Dormition Sarov Monastery before 1917 and under Soviet rule 54
Magnetic thermonuclear reactor, meeting with Lavrenty Beria 56
Magnetic cumulation and explosive magnetic generators, "tea" with explosives, preparation for the Sloyka test 58
Chapter 6 1953 65
Stalin's death, end to the Doctors' Plot, and Beria's Red Book 65
The Sloyka (RDS-6s) test, conferred title of "academician", a memo to the Government, Politburo meeting in the Kremlin and two secret decrees of the Government, awarded his first Hero of Socialist Labor title 67
Chapter 7 1954-1955 73
The Third Idea, "Israel" and "Egypt", the test of RDS-37 73
A clash with Marshal Nedelin, his death in an ICBM test launch accident; threat of global self-immolation; second Hero of Socialist Labor award 78
Chapter 8 1955-1959 81
N.S. Khrushchev's accession to power and the era of his reign 81
The Soviet Union's military-industrial complex 85
Chapter 9 1957-1963 89
Biological consequences of nuclear tests: ten thousand people to die over the next five thousand years; global consequences of the "oddities of a genius"; a clash with Khrushchev at the July 10, 1961 meeting in the Kremlin (N.S. Khrushchev, "We helped Kennedy's election. You can say we elected him last year"); Khrushchev's anger and Brezhnev's deference 89
The Tsar Bomb; denunciation of Stalin and Stalinism by the XXII Communist Party Congress; third Hero of Socialist Labor award - in the Kremlin back again 95
Tragedy of the "double test", I fell face down on my desk and wept; the August 1963 signing of the Moscow Limited Test Ban Treaty 98
Chapter 10 Humanity Has Just Been Lucky 103
The Cuban Missile Crisis: Americans suspected us to be bandits, in a sense; The guy named Arkhipov saved the world 103
Real chances of a wide-scale thermonuclear war: Humanity has just been lucky 108
Chapter 11 Before the Turn 115
Scientific work in the 1960s: "Sakharov oscillations", baryon asymmetry of the universe, induced gravity 115
Early public engagements before 1968 120
Part III Human Rights Key to Saving Mankind. 1968-1975 127
Chapter 12 1968 129
"Reflections on Progress, Peaceful Coexistence, and Intellectual Freedom" 129
Samizdat as a way to reach out to the Politburo; the missile defense thriller, and the policy of "detente" as aftereffects of Sakharov's Reflections 133
Suppression of the Prague Spring, a demonstration on Red Square and the last conversation with KGB Chairman Yuri Andropov 137
The Gravity Conference in Tbilisi, John Archibald Wheeler 139
Chapter 13 1969-1970 143
Klava's illness and death, return to FIAN 143
A Memorandum by Sakharov, Turchin, and R. Medvedev; psychiatric repressions and rescue of Zhores Medvedev, the Human Rights Committee 145
The trial of Revolt Pimenov and Boris Vail, the Leningrad airplane case, first meetings with Elena Bonner 149
Chapter 14 1971-1972 159
A Memorandum to Leonid Brezhnev, human rights activities, to Israel or to Siberia: a paradox of the era 159
Violation of religious freedoms, the rights of believers 163
Psychiatric repression 164
The problem of the Crimean Tatars 164
The freedom to leave the country and return to it 166
"Lusia is my wife", songs on the train, arrest of Yuri Shikhanovich, Jean the dog 169
Chapter 15 1973 177
First public denunciations, interview with Olle Stenholm; a warning in the Prosecutor General's Office, Sakharov's first "explosive" press conference and first overwhelming smear campaign against him, still an enigma: why he was not exiled "to Narym"; the Simas Kudirka case 177
The Jackson-Vanik Amendment, the Yom Kippur War, the Black September threatening visit and in-depth motives for Sakharov's attention to the Middle East; "The Third World War on Christmas", the Main Political Directorate of the Soviet Army and Navy as a "state within a state" 186
The Kuznetsov Prison Diaries, Elena Bonner's summons to the KGB; the hospital of the Academy of Sciences and Sakharov about Himself, friends' visits 196
Chapter 16 1974 203
Arrest of The Gulag Archipelago and Solzhenitsyn's expulsion 203
The unbearable hostage of loved ones began: We don't know what they want to do with you, but you need to urgently check out, as you can, under whatever pretext! 205
Sakharov's first hunger strike and the visit of the US President Nixon, Jackson-Vanik amendment and frightening threats to the grandchild, the arrest of Sergei Kovalev 206
Chapter 17 1975 213
Fight for Lusia's trip, the victory and 2-year-old Matvei's sudden illness, the KGB hates losing 213
A meeting in Helsinki and the Helsinki Act 217
The book My Country and the World 218
The Nobel Prize, last talk with Galich; President of France and an appeal to the Fifth Assembly of the World Council of Churches in Nairobi 222
Reaction to Sakharov's Nobel Prize in the USSR and the first public dirt-slander on Elena Bonner; Pope John Paul II and great Russian poetry 225
Historic days in Oslo and Vilnius: Mama, write this down, May God help Sergei Kovalev and his friends!; Elena Bonner's return to Moscow 228
Several quotes from Sakharov's Nobel lecture, "Peace, Progress, Human Rights" 232
Volume 2 Protection of Human Rights vs Realpolitik: The Past That Has Not Pass 237
Preface to Volume 2. In the end, the moral choice turns out to be the most pragmatic: the new global picture of the world. Hopes attached to perestroika and their collapse: lessons for the present and future. 239
Part IV Daily Routines of Human Rights Struggle, Tightening the Screws and Exile, the Afghan War and the Madness of the European Nuclear Race (1976-1984) 243
Chapter 18 1976-January 21, 1980 245
Deaths natural or unnatural? 245
Trips to Omsk and Yakutia; the creation of the Moscow Helsinki Group (MHG) and related human rights initiatives 250
Significant events: Vladimir Bukovsky's exchange, a fire in Malva Landa's room, a terrorist attack in a Moscow subway and Sakharov's statement suggesting possible KGB involvement, correspondence with the U.S. President and Jimmy Carter's historic statement 257
Arrest of Helsinki group members, impotence of Western "big politicians" and the trials of Yuri Orlov, Alexander Ginzburg, and Anatoly Sharansky 264
A surreptitious search and theft of Memoirs manuscripts to execute the Politburo decision; the KGB and worm-infested meat 276
A special operation, "Family Cleansing" 277
Day-to-day advocacy for human rights, letters and visitors 283
Sensational releases and new arrests, the invasion of Afghanistan, final days before exile to Gorky 287
Chapter 19 Exile-1 (1980-1983) 293
Arrest, deportation to Gorky, the Kremlin's ambivalence: whether or not to gag him by locking her up in Gorky, or perhaps by murdering her 293
Baryon asymmetry of the universe as a lifebuoy; the theorists' win prevented Sakharov's dismissal from FIAN 304
Shaking off the KGB "tail" in order to visit Malva Landa (February, 1980) 307
Everyday life in exile, Sakharov's 60th birthday in May 1981 308
Three more thefts and miraculous rescue of the Memoirs 315
Chapter 20 Exile-2 (1981-1983) 325
Liza's hunger strike (November 22-December 8, 1981) and our hunger-strike baby (February, 1983) 325
My adventures and the life-saving support of Western colleagues 338
Sakharov's public statements from exile and more than weird position of high authorities 341
Chapter 21 Exile-3 (1983-1984) 347
Letter to Sidney Drell, "The Danger of Thermonuclear War" - the dialectic of nuclear disarmament according to Sakharov (While making no claim to infallibility in addressing such a complex and critical question, I could not remain silent, it would be even worse) 347
Elena Bonner's heart attack, bullying in the media as well as in reality 354
Bonner's arrest at the Gorky airport, making another hunger strike imminent (They want to turn me into a living corpse), a tragic letter to the Academy of Sciences' President Anatoly Alexandrov 361
Between the hunger strikes: Sakharov stopped his hunger strike, the city's populace continuous to starve; a letter stashed under newspapers, buried alive 372
Part V Gorbachev's Perestroika (1985-1988) 377
Chapter 22 Exile-4 (1985-1986) 379
A dramatic fate of the letter to Alexandrov 379
The last hunger strike: April thru October 1985; "A beast in a skirt", victory! 382
Elena Bonner in the USA; Sakharov in "solitary confinement" for six months; physics; One of my most important documents: the letter to Gorbachev requesting release of the prisoners of conscience 403
Gorky, June-December 1986: Elena Bonner's return (the mousetrap slammed shut), Anatoly Marchenko's death, and Gorbachev's telephone call to end the exile 410
Chapter 23 1987-1988 421
Back to Moscow from the Gorky exile; perestroika's first miracle - the release of prisoners of conscience; contradictions and difficulties of perestroika 421
VIP visitors, perestroika's second miracle - rejection of the "package" principle and achievement of the Gorbachev-Reagan Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty) 427
Seminar on Quantum Gravity: John Wheeler and Stephen Hawking, I dreamed of science, the gravitational conference in Leningrad 431
A German amateur pilot lands on Moscow's Red Square, forcing resignation of the Ministry of Defense's top brass; The Inevitability of Perestroika; horrible pogroms and Gorbachev's incomprehensible inaction: It's not time to talk about it yet 435
The first trip abroad: Reagan, Teller-Oppenheimer-Sakharov; Mitterrand: You are guests of the Republic 438
Traveling to Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Nagorno-Karabakh; a trip to the earthquake zone; ecological problems and the Armenian nuclear power plant 446
Part VI Sakharov - A Public Politician: Lessons for the Present and Future. 1989-2022 451
Chapter 24 1988 - May 1989 453
Chaos unleashed by conflicted dual local power and collapse of the economy fueled by the incompetence and inconsistencies of Gorbachev's perestroika; three points centering on the economy of Sakharov's pre-election program 453
A new supreme governing body in the USSR; elections of People's Deputies; Sakharov: The people turned out to be alive. God forbid that these hopes are deceived 460
Travel to Italy, Canada, and the USA 463
The April 9, 1989, massacre in Tbilisi: Who gave the order? - an unanswered question 466
Chapter 25 The First Congress of People's Deputies and Miners' Strikes: May-July 1989 471
Preparatory events before the Congress 471
The First Congress (May 25-June 9, 1989); live broadcast of its sessions with a country-wide coverage; Sakharov in the spotlight 473
Measures with the purpose of excluding capture - 5 minutes facing millions 479
The last day of the Congress; Sakharov's keynote program statement 483
Results of the Congress: "Tragic optimism", miners' strikes, conversation with Anatoly Lukyanov 489
Chapter 26 Last Seven Months: June-December 1989 495
Trips to Europe, USA, and the Urals, Russia; completion of the memoirs; Lecture in Lyons; a tip on a likely military coup 495
A politician once again 500
A two-hour political strike and the last day at FIAN 503
The last speeches: against extension of preliminary investigation term, The formula of opposition 512
Unexpected death 513
Epilogue 517
Scientific Addendum: "Do you know what I like most of all? Relic radiation". Sakharov's scientific legacy in modern perspective 533
Subject and Abbreviation Glossary 563
Bibliography 577
About the Author 591
Index 593
