(10 of 19)
Lusia, who was still permitted to travel, left Gorky for Moscow on Jan. 27. The next day, at a press conference held in our Chkalov Street apartment, she read a statement I had written describing the circumstances of my exile and my thoughts on current issues. She also visited the Procurator's Office to determine the official grounds for my exile and to resolve the visa problem of her son's fiancee Liza (Alexei had immigrated to the U.S. in May 1978, but Liza had not received permission to join him).
Several Gorky residents visited me while Lusia was absent. Felix Krasavin, an old friend of the Bonner family, paid a call. So did the refusenik physicist Mark Kovner, whom I'd met at a seminar in Moscow. I made new acquaintances, among them Sergei Ponomarev, who had served five years in a labor camp for "anti-Soviet activity."
Each visitor, upon leaving the building, was taken by the police to a nearby site designated "post for the maintenance of public order." They would be held for hours while their papers were checked, and attempts would be made to intimidate them. Many suffered unpleasant repercussions. After a few weeks the authorities allowed only people sent or approved by the KGB to pass through their blockade. A few months later, the flow of visitors stopped altogether.
On Jan. 28 I was ordered to report to MVD headquarters. There, two KGB men introduced themselves as Major Chuprov and Captain Shuvalov. They complained that I had violated the terms of my regimen by phoning Moscow and writing a postscript to a Helsinki Group document.
"They're mistaken," I said.
"Will you put that in writing?"
"Of course." I took a sheet of paper and wrote that I had not called Moscow (my attempts to telephone had all been illegally cut off). I had added my signature to the document about Afghanistan but had not made any changes in it, since I was not a member of the Helsinki Group.
I asked Chuprov to write down several requests and pass them on. I asked that Liza be granted a visa to join Alexei, that young scientists from FIAN be permitted to visit me, that I have access to my regular doctors from the academy clinic, that the telephone be reconnected in the Moscow apartment of Lusia's mother Ruth (essential because of her age, 79, and her health) and that phone service be installed in the Gorky apartment -- members of the academy are entitled to a private telephone.
Chuprov suggested that I order the telephone myself. I said that no one would speak with me at the telephone office since I was officially still a resident of Moscow.
"You can register as a resident of Gorky."
"Under no circumstances will I do that: I was sent here illegally."
That same evening, I answered the doorbell. Two men -- drunk or pretending to be drunk -- entered, declaring that they wanted to "get a look at this Sakharov guy."
"I'm Sakharov."
"Why do you want the Olympics boycotted?"
"Because the U.S.S.R. is conducting military operations in Afghanistan."
Suddenly, one pulled a pistol from his pocket; he began playing with it and waving it around. I asked whether it was a real pistol or just a cigarette lighter. One of them replied, "A cigarette lighter that drills holes in people."