| Congressional Record: April 24, 2002 (Extensions) Page E622-E623 POSTHUMOUS HONORARY U.S. CITIZENSHIP FOR ANDREI DMITRIEVICH SAKHAROV HON. CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH of new jersey in the house of representatives Wednesday, April 24, 2002 Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, it is with great pleasure and a deep sense of solemnity that I introduce, along with Mr. Frank of Massachusetts, a resolution to bestow honorary citizenship posthumously upon a man whose contribution to world peace and the struggle for human rights inspired, and continues to inspire, his own generation and those who have followed him. That man is the late Dr. Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov, renowned physicist, humanitarian, and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. [[Page E623]] Dr. Sakharov was a man of great stature in the Soviet scientific community, working on defense projects of the greatest importance to the Soviet government. His induction into the Academy of Sciences in 1953 made him the youngest-ever member of the Academy. He enjoyed every privilege that Soviet society had to offer, but he abandoned his elevated position to protest the threat to humankind posed by nuclear testing and the build up of nuclear arms. This led to Dr. Sakharov's becoming a leader of the effort for internal reform in the Soviet Union and a strong advocate for human rights throughout the world. In 1962, Dr. Sakharov proposed to his government that the Soviet Union sponsor a partial Test Ban treaty along the lines proposed by U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower in the late 1950s. On August 5, 1963, the effort resulted in the signing of the Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapon Tests in the Atmosphere, in Outer Space, and Under Water in Moscow. In 1968, The New York Times published Dr. Sakharov's ground-breaking essay "Progress, Coexistence, and Intellectual Freedom" which pursued two major themes. The first was to challenge Soviet authorities to increase intellectual freedom in the interest of peaceful co-existence with the West and ending the Cold War. Conversely, it stimulated Western interest in disarmament and scientific exchanges, and convinced many opinion-makers in the West that it was worth entering into a dialogue with Soviet intellectuals and that change from within was possible in the USSR. Ultimately, more than 18,000,000 copies of the essay were printed around the world in various languages. Within two years, Dr. Sakharov, along with Valery Chalidze and Andrei Tverdokhlebov, became one of the three founding members of the Moscow Human Rights Committee. This gave institutional expression to Sakharov's developing interest in human rights and the rule of law as guiding principles in the effort to reform and liberalize the Soviet regime. When the Helsinki Accords were signed in 1975 by the Soviet Union, the United States, Canada and 32 European countries, he noted that the Accords had meaning "only if [the Accords] are observed fully and by all parties. No country should evade a discussion on its own domestic problems * * * [n]or should a country ignore violations in other participating states. The whole point of the Helsinki Accords is mutual monitoring, not mutual evasion of difficult problems." As he became more committed to the human fights struggle in his country and peace throughout the world, Dr. Sakharov continued to speak out on peace and disarmament, as well as freedom of association and movement, freedom of speech, against capital punishment, and in defense of preserving the environment. Such "heresy" against his government's denial of basic human rights brought upon him reprisals from the Soviet government and its secret police, the KGB. He was barred from classified work, and many of his professional privileges rescinded. Only after a 17-day hunger strike by Dr. Sakharov and his wife and fellow human rights activist, Dr. Elena Bonner, did authorities allow his daughter-in-law to join her husband in the United States. Only after another long struggle was Dr. Bonner permitted to go abroad for medical treatment. At the same time, the international community was closely following his efforts, understanding that his struggle touched us all. In 1975, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Dr. Sakharov for his "personal and fearless effort in the cause of peace." It was, Dr. Sakharov wrote, "a great honor for me, as well as recognition for the entire human rights movement in the USSR." On January 22, 1980, in response to Dr. Sakharov's protests against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Dr. Sakharov was picked up by the police on a Moscow street and sent into "Internal exile" in the closed city of Gorky. Joined subsequently by Dr. Elena Bonner, he was kept under house arrest, with a round-the-clock police guard, until December 1986. Dr. Bonner describes their plight eloquently in her book, Alone Together. Meanwhile, at the direction of the Congress, President Ronald Reagan proclaimed May 21, 1983Dr. Sakharov's birthday"National Andrei Sakharov Day." In his published statement, President Reagan praised Dr. Sakharov's "tireless and courageous efforts on behalf of international peace and on behalf of human freedoms for the peoples of the Soviet Union." Upon his release from internal exile on December 16, 1986 by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, Dr. Sakharov continued the fight for human rights in the Soviet Union and was elected to the newly-formed Congress of People's Deputies. Just before his death in 1989, he completed his draft of a new constitution and submitted it to the Constitutional Commission. While many of its specific points were provisional and advanced to provoke debate, the draft fundamentally provided for a democratic political system, revoking the Communist Party monopoly on power. Indeed, a few months after Dr. Sakharov's death, the Congress of People's Deputies repealed Article 6 of the Constitution which had provided the legal basis for the Communist Party's monopoly on power in the Soviet Union. This loss of Communist Party monopoly led inexorably to the collapse of the Soviet Union, which removed from the earth a vast state that repressed its own citizens and presented a powerful military threat to the United States. Recently, President Putin, a former KGB agent himself, called Dr. Sakharov "a visionary * * * someone who was able to not only see the future, but to express, to articulate his thoughts, and do that without any fear." Fearless in the face of state repression, principled in his devotion to peace and disarmament, selfless in the pursuit of human rights for all, this was Dr. Sakharov's character. Mr. Speaker, honorary citizenship is conferred by the United States Government on rare occasions to individuals who have made extraordinary contributions to this country or to humankind throughout the world. It is and should remain an extraordinary honor not lightly conferred nor frequently granted. Mr. Speaker, I believe that for his contribution to world peace, the end of the Cold War, the recognition of the inextricable link between human rights and genuine security and the achievement of human rights, however rudimentary in some areas, in the nations of the former Soviet Union, Dr. Andrei Sakharov is worthy of being posthumously granted honorary citizenship of the United States. I hope my colleagues share my enthusiasm for this initiative and will support this resolution. | |
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