WEEKLY SUMMARY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP79-00927A011200030001-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 24
• Document Creation Date: December 21, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 2, 2008
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: October 17, 1975
• Content Type: SUMMARY

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Secret
Weekly Summary
Secret
No. 0042 / 75
October 17, 1975
Copy N2 66
DOS Review
Completed
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CONTENTS (October 17, 1975)
1 USSR: Sakharov; Siberian Development
4 USSR-Syria: An Imoortant Symbol
25X1
7 Turkey: Stronger Hand to Demirel
8 Portugal: Testing Azevedo
MIDDLE EAST
AFRICA
9 Angola: Little Change
10 India: Economic Prospects Good
11 Lebanon: Cease-Fire Threatened
12 Spanish Sahara: Court Decision
WESTERN
HEMISPHERE
13 Panama: No Fireworks
14 Chile: Changing Advisers
15 Brazil: Shifting Oil Policy
16 Ecuador: Counting Down
16 Argentina: State of the Presidency
EAST ASIA
PACIFIC
Comments and queries on the contents of this
publication are welcome. They may be
directed to the editor of the Weekly
Summary
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Soviet physicist Andrey Sakharov (r) toasts his winning of the Nobel Peace Prize
USSR 1 ,3
SAKHAROV ADDS TO KREMLIN'S WOES
The already sizable headache presented the
Soviet regime by dissident spokesman physicist
Andrey Sakharov seems destined to grow worse,
now that he has been awarded the Nobel Peace
Prize. This spring, Sakharov lent his name to the
organizers of a blue-ribbon international tribunal
on the status of human rights in the Soviet Union.
The conclave, which has been almost a year in the
planning, is slated to be held in Copenhagen Oc-
tober 17-19.
Soviet officials have so far declined to com-
ment on SAkharov's Nobel award. Moscow's
foreign-language broadcasts, however, have at-
tacked the Nobel Committee's "political
gesture," saying it was designed to "kindle the an-
ti-Soviet campaign and impede the easing of in-
ternational tension." In calling Sakharov a man
who has "put himself in a position of an anti-
patriot and an opponent of peaceful coex-
istence, Moscow's broadsides suggest that a ma-
jor campaign to discredit Sakharov is in the mak-
ing. The first domestic assault on Sakharov as a
"hater of peace" appeared in the Soviet press on
Ocober 15.
Sakharov, meanwhile, has told Western
reporters that he views the prize as beneficial to
the cause of human rights in the USSR, and he has
renewed his call for a general amnesty for
political prisoners. In telephone interviews with
Western media, Sakharov said that the CSCE
agreements and his Nobel award should give im-
petus to an "international crusade" for human
rights in the USSR.
Sakharov has also said that he hopes the
Kremlin will not see his Nobel award as a
"challenge" and that he believes it would
"violate the spirit of detente" if he were
not permitted to go to Oslo in December to
collect the prize. The Norwegian embassy in
Pane 1 WFFKI Y SI JMMARY Oct 17- 75
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Moscow reportedly has assured Sakharov of its
government's support.
Whether to let Sakharov go to Oslo-and
to return-will, nevertheless, be a difficult
decision for the Soviet leaders, even more so
now that prominent Soviet non-dissident
scientist Dr. Leonid Kantorovich has been
named co-recipient of the 1975 Nobel prize
for economics. The Kremlin may find it
embarrassing to charge the Nobel Committee
with playing politics in Sakharov's case, while
recognizing in Kantorovich-a Lenin-prize
winner-the contributions of a major establish-
ment scientist.
Soviet leaders also remember clearly the
case of exiled writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn,
who won the Nobel Literature Prize in 1970,
but declined to go to Stockholm unless assured
he could return to the USSR. The affair ended
with his expulsion in February 1974. In
the intervening four years, Solzhenitsyn's
name remained in the headlines and tarred
the Soviet reputation abroad.
Moscow has not yet commented directly on
the Copenhagen tribunal. Tass, however, has
replayed for foreign consumption some of the
more derisive comments by Western leftist media,
including questioning of the dissident physicist's
"humanist" credentials and dark hints about the
sources of the meeting's financial backing.
If the tribunal follows early plans, it will range
across human rights violations in the USSR, from
religious oppression to curbs on freedom of
movement. Its focus will be on testimony from
survivors of Soviet prisons, labor camps, and psy-
chiatric hospitals.
The sponsors, a group of Soviet and East
European exiles resident in Denmark, have
solicited testimony, oral and written, from "any
person able to give it." Several prominent Soviet
exiles are expected to testify. Solzhenitsyn has
been invited but has reportedly declined to at-
tend.
Sakharov's prominence at home and abroad,
along with his record of public appeals on behalf
of the very causes the tribunal intends to ex-
amine, made his name an obvious and early
choice for the sponsors of the Copenhagen
meeting. There is no evidence that they knew
beforehand that Sakharov would win the Nobel
Peace Prize. The award will be sure to attract add-
ed attention to the tribunal's proceedings.
The two events, the Peace Prize and the
tribunal, will intensify speculation about
Sakharov's future. Dissident sources in Moscow
say he does not wish to abandon the causes he has
embraced in the USSR by leaving for good, but his
reported ill health and fears that his wife, who is
recuperating from eye surgery in Italy, will not be
permitted to return home could force Sakharov
to think of emigrating.
Sakharov gradually took up dissident ac-
tivities in the 1960s and was slowly cut off from his
work on the Soviet nuclear program. He was fired
and his security clearance lifted shortly after
publication in the West during 1968 of his essay,
"Progress, Coexistence, and Intellectual
Freedom." Since May 1969, he has held a low-
ranking job as a part-time researcher at the
Lebedev Institute of Physics in Moscow.
Sakharov, however, remains a member of the
Soviet Academy of Sciences. He even attended
the opening of the academy's 250th anniversary
celebrations in Moscow on October 7 and listen-
ed to General Secretary Brezhnev's keynote ad-
dress. Sakharov's contacts there with numerous
visiting Western scientists increases the size of the
problem he poses for the regime.
The strongly democratic, soberly reformist
Sakharov has never subscribed to the
authoritarian, nationalistic outlook expressed by
Solzhenitsyn. Sakharov has thus been able to
reach a wider Western audience as a spokesman
for human rights in the USSR. The contrast
between Solzhenitsyn and Sakharov is a further
measure of the Kremlin's problem in dealing with
the dissident physicist.
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The Soviet Union opened two bridges along
the route of the Baykal-Amur railroad in
September, crossing another hurdle in Siberian
railroad construction. These two are among the
largest of 142 major bridges envisioned for the
railroad, and their completion will have a signifi-
cant psychological and technological impact. The
construction techniques were new to the USSR,
and the experience gained should aid construc-
tion of the other bridges.
The 1,100-meter Amur River bridge at the
eastern end of the railroad provides a major year-
round connection between the railroad and the
Pacific Ocean. This link should alleviate
bottlenecks in existing rail capacity. Until now,
the Soviets have relied on a rail ferry during
F= .
ing.19
summer and tracks across the ice during winter.
At the western end, the Lena River bridge will
simplify moving heavy equipment needed at two
of the largest planned tunnel sites-one near
Nizhneangarsk and the other, which will be the
longest tunnel in the USSR, at Severo-Muyskiy.
Railroad construction-particularly the
Baykal-Amur railroad-has top priority in the
Kremlin's plans for developing Siberia. Construc-
tion on the Baykal-Amur was to increase fivefold
this year and is planned to double again in 1976.
Although work on the railroad generally has
progressed on schedule, it is still too early to
evaluate whether the 1982 completion deadline
can be met because construction over the most
rugged terrain has yet to start in earnest.
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