Council of U.S. Academy of Sciences Expresses Concern to Soviet Counterparts over Sakharov Harrassment

Abstract

National Academy of Sciences (NAS) president Philip Handler has made public a cable to his opposite number in the Soviet Union expressing the "deep concern" of the NAS Council for the welfare of dissenting Soviet physicist Andrei Sakharov and warning that, if further measures were taken against Sakharov, "it would be extremely difficult to imagine successful fulfillment of American pledges of binational scientific cooperation . . . ." Handler's message is the strongest public expression to date of NAS concern over treatment of Soviet scientists and other intellectuals (Science, 6 April). The cable, addressed to M. V. Keldysh, president of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, is given in full below.