Letter to a Friend

The Soviet militiamen guarding the American embassy on Tchaikovsky Street in Moscow stared in surprise as the chauffeured limousine pulled up. Out of his official car stepped a leading member of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. He was ushered into the office of a ranking embassy official, who received his caller with all the ceremony and respect due one of the world's greatest thermonuclear physicists and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate.

The visitor was Andrei Sakharov, spiritual leader of Russia's dissident movement (TIME cover story, Feb. 21). Though stripped of all his scientific posts, and harassed constantly by the KGB, he has retained certain privileges, among them, oddly enough, the use of a chauffeured limousine.

It was a special mission that brought Sakharov to the embassy. As he jubilantly explained to 17 Western journalists who jammed his little flat later, Sakharov had been handed a letter from Jimmy Carter, pledging continued commitment to human rights in the U.S. and abroad. "We shall use our good offices to seek the release of prisoners of conscience," wrote Carter, and "we will continue our efforts to shape a world responsive to human aspirations."

The letter, written Feb. 5, inexplicably was delivered twelve days later. Thus it predated the President's public critique of the Soviets for having jailed Dissident Alexander Ginzburg, which triggered the Kremlin's fury. Once again, the Russian response came swiftly. Hours after Sakharov's announcement, Soviet Ambassador Anatoli Dobrynin called on Acting U.S. Secretary of State Arthur Hartman in Washington and declared that the Kremlin "resolutely" rejected "attempts to interfere in its internal affairs." The Soviet leaders were furious that a U.S. President had made direct contact with their most eloquent critic; Sakharov himself further provoked their ire by boldly appearing at the U.S. embassy. Washington, in any case, offered no apologies. Questioned as to whether Carter's letter might worsen the prospects of an arms agreement with Moscow, Press Secretary Jody Powell replied: "Loving one another is not usually the reason for reaching an agreement on nuclear weapons." Translation: if a SALT agreement is reached, it will be out of mutual self-interest.

To signal further his determination to speak out on the subject, Carter last week also linked the question of human rights to a possible rapprochement with Cuba. Now it remained to be seen whether he would turn his attention to friendly nations--Iran, South Korea, Chile, for example--where the rights of dissidents are hardly more tolerated than in the Soviet Union.

Meanwhile, the gathering momentum of protest against human rights violations in Eastern Europe was meeting relentless government opposition. In Prague, along with continuing attacks on dissidents, authorities intimidated Western newsmen in an effort to mute news of widespread dissident activity. Correspondents Paul Hofmann of the New York Times and Walter Kratzer of the West German magazine

Stern were taken off the Prague-Vienna Express by police. After interrogation and the seizure of notes and documents, the police unceremoniously dumped the newsmen two miles from the Austrian border.

In Rumania, Party Chief Nicolae Ceausescu publicly threatened eight writers and intellectuals who had issued an appeal for greater respect for the human rights guaranteed by the Rumanian constitution and Helsinki accord. In a nationwide broadcast, the Rumanian dictator denounced dissidents as "traitors"--a warning that human rights activists were risking long jail sentences or possibly even death.

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