"You are a disgrace to the Soviet Union," a plainclothes security policeman told Andrei Sakharov last week as he barred the Russian nuclear physicist from attending the trial of a fellow dissident in Lithuania. At almost the same moment, at Oslo University, the Nobel Prize for Peace was given to Sakharov in absentia. He was the first Russian to be so honored (13 Russians have won prizes in the sciences and literature). Sakharov was prevented by the Kremlin from traveling to Oslo, ostensibly for "security" reasons.
His wife, who was allowed to leave Russia earlier for an eye operation, accepted...
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