Soviet Union A Hero's Return

For weeks the rumors had swirled. After seven years of "internal exile" in the closed city of Gorky, Andrei Sakharov, the distinguished nuclear physicist who had become the Soviet Union's leading human-rights activist, would soon be released. Even so, when the official announcement finally came last week, it caught journalists by surprise. They had gathered in the main hall of Moscow's ^ international press center to be briefed on an entirely different subject, the Kremlin's decision to resume nuclear testing after a self-imposed 16-month moratorium. During the question-and-answer session, Deputy Foreign Minister Vladimir Petrovsky was asked about reports that Sakharov and...