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That was too much for the Kremlin. Sakharov's earlier critiques of Soviet totalitarianism, and his impassioned pleas br political prisoners in the Gulag had long enraged the Soviet leaders. But they had been reluctant to arrest so famous a dissident for fear of jeopardizing the advantages of détente, including trade with the U.S. After the invasion of Afghanistan and Washington's punitive embargoes, the Soviets felt free to put Sakharov away. As one top State Department analyst explained the arrest: "Moscow figured there wasn't much more to lose because there was nothing much more we could do to them." The Soviet action was a direct rebuke to President Carter, who had written Sakharov a letter of personal support in 1977. Above all, it was an unmistakable warning to dissidents, human rights advocates and all libertarians in the Soviet Union that détente had been halted at home, just as it had ended abroad.
In Moscow, the dwindling ranks of dissidents still at large mourned the loss of their leader. Said Literary Scholar Lev Kopelev: "Sakharov incarnates the conscience of Russia." There were demonstrations in several Western capitals, where governments expressed outrage at the treatment of Sakharov—as did a number of Communist leaders. The White House said that the Soviet action was "a blow to the aspiration of all mankind to establish respect for human rights." Italy's President Alessandro Pertini sent a cable of protest to Brezhnev. The West German government demanded that the Sakharovs be allowed to return to Moscow. France's president of the National Assembly, Jacques Chaban-Delmas, cut short his official visit to the Soviet Union and returned to Paris in indignation over the exile. "As a guest of the Soviet authorities I cannot interfere in internal affairs," he said. "But my own moral principles will not allow me to remain silent."
The Soviets did show a certain restraint by merely banishing Sakharov, instead of putting him on trial. Said one State Department official: "Being exiled to Gorky is a little like being sent to Detroit; it ain't great but it ain't so bad." Still, the Soviet press attacks on Sakharov suggested that he might ultimately be charged with high treason. The government newspaper Izvestia, for example, claimed that the physicist had "repeatedly blurted out things that any state protects as an important secret" to U.S. diplomats and correspondents. Some Soviet officials, however, assured Western journalists that Sakharov would not stand trial and might even be able to continue his work as a scientist.