There can be no doubt that behind all the actions of this court of justice, that is to say in my case, behind my arrest and today's interrogation, there is a great organization at work.
—Franz Kafka, The Trial
He was, until 18 months ago, virtually unknown—an unemployed Jewish computer programmer on the fringes of the Soviet Union's human rights movement in Moscow. Then the Kremlin leaders decided to crush, once and for all, the flickering life signs of dissidence in the U.S.S.R. That is how last week, Anatoli Shcharansky became the symbol of deteriorating U.S.-Soviet relations, the object of confrontation politics between the Kremlin and the White House, and the personification of the struggle for human rights being waged by the Soviet Union's dogged dissidents. Put on trial for treason in Moscow, he was speedily convicted and sentenced to 13 years in prison and a hard-labor camp. The accusation: spying for a foreign intelligence service that was obviously, though it was not explicitly stated, the CIA. Although President Carter had categorically denied the charge, Washington—for humanitarian reason—was exploring the possibility of exchanging two Russian spies arrested in New Jersey for Shcharansky.
Although Shcharansky, 30, had been spared the death penalty, his trial and conviction raised questions around the world about the benefits of Carter's zealous espousal of the human rights cause in the Soviet Union. But at the end of the trial, Shcharansky's mother, Ida Milgrom, 70, indicated that Russia's dissidents are thankful for Carter's support. Although shaken by the predictable verdict, the diminutive white-haired woman stood outside the Moscow courtroom in a light summer rain and read a message to Carter before Western correspondents: ''During the painful days of the trial I have not left the iron fence around the courthouse. I faced a thick wall of KGB and militia officials in the hope of catching sight of my child from afar. All these days I could hear your sincere authoritative voice in support of an innocent man. Accept, Mr. President, our deep and sincere gratitude."
Throughout the Western world, there was a storm of protest directed against the Shcharansky trial and the court cases conducted simultaneously against two other human rights activists: Alexander Ginzburg and Viktoras Pektus. They also were found guilty last week and sentenced respectively to eight and ten years. In Britain, Prime Minister James Callaghan charged that these cases "bear some of the hallmarks of the trials we knew in Stalin's day" (see box). In Israel, where attacks on Soviet Jews are perceived as a family tragedy, Premier Menachem Begin said that Shcharansky's "only sin was that he wanted to join his people in Israel." In Italy, a statement issued by Italian Communist Party Chief Enrico Berlinguer proclaimed: "Convictions for crimes of opinion cannot be tolerated."