Editing Andrei Sakharov (section)

===Turn to activism===
[[File:BonnerSacharov1989.jpg|thumb|Sakharov and Bonner in 1989]]
Since the late 1950s Sakharov had become concerned about the moral and political implications of his work. Politically active during the 1960s, Sakharov was against [[nuclear proliferation]]. Pushing for the end of atmospheric tests, he played a role in the 1963 [[Partial Test Ban Treaty]], signed in Moscow.<ref>{{Cite news|last=Anderson|first=Raymond H.|date=1989-12-15|title=Andrei Sakharov, 68, Nuclear Inventor and Mainspring of the Soviet Conscience (Published 1989)|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1989/12/15/obituaries/andrei-sakharov-68-nuclear-inventor-and-mainspring-of-the-soviet-conscience.html|access-date=2021-03-14|issn=0362-4331}}</ref>

Sakharov was also involved in an event with political consequences in 1964, when the [[Soviet Academy of Sciences]] nominated for full membership [[Nikolai Nuzhdin]], a follower of [[Trofim Lysenko]] (initiator of the Stalin-supported anti-genetics campaign [[Lysenkoism]]). Contrary to normal practice, Sakharov, a member of the academy, publicly spoke out against full membership for Nuzhdin and held him responsible for "the defamation, firing, arrest, even death, of many genuine scientists."<ref name=":2">{{Cite book|title=Brezhnev and the Decline of the Soviet Union|last=Crump|first=Thomas|date=2013|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-134-66922-6|series=Routledge Studies in the History of Russia and Eastern Europe}}</ref>{{Rp|109}} In the end, Nuzhdin was not elected, but the episode prompted Nikita Khrushchev to order the [[KGB]] to gather [[kompromat|compromising material]] on Sakharov.<ref name=":2" />{{Rp|109}} In 1966 Sakharov was one of the signatories on the [[Letter of the Twenty Five]] regarding the inadmissibility of "partial or indirect rehabilitation of Joseph Stalin".

The major turn in Sakharov's political evolution came in 1967, when [[anti-ballistic missile]] defense became a key issue in [[Soviet Union–United States relations|US–Soviet relations]]. In a secret detailed letter to the Soviet leadership of July 21, 1967, Sakharov explained the need to "take the Americans at their word" and accept their proposal for a "bilateral rejection by the USA and the Soviet Union of the development of antiballistic missile defense" because an arms race in the new technology would otherwise increase the likelihood of nuclear war. He also asked permission to publish his manuscript, which accompanied the letter, in a newspaper to explain the dangers posed by that kind of defense. The government ignored his letter and refused to let him initiate a public discussion of ABMs in the [[Media of the Soviet Union|Soviet press]].<ref>Gennady Gorelik. The Metamorphosis of Andrei Sakharov. Scientific American, 1999, March.</ref><ref>Web exhibit "Andrei SAKHAROV: Soviet Physics, Nuclear Weapons, and Human Rights" at American Institute of Physics [http://www.aip.org/history/sakharov/] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151229021107/https://www.aip.org/history/sakharov/|date=December 29, 2015}}</ref>

Since 1967, after the [[Six-Day War|Six Day War]] and the beginning of the [[Arab–Israeli conflict|Arab-Israeli conflict]], he actively supported [[Israel]], as he reported more than once in the press, and also maintained friendly relations with [[refusenik]]s who later made [[aliyah]].

In May 1968, Sakharov completed an essay, "Reflections on Progress, Peaceful Coexistence, and Intellectual Freedom". He described the anti-ballistic missile defense as a major threat of world nuclear war. After the essay was circulated in ''[[samizdat]]'' and then published outside the Soviet Union,<ref>Initially on July 6, 1968, in the Dutch newspaper ''[[Het Parool]]'' through the intermediary of the Dutch academic and writer [[Karel van het Reve]], followed by ''[[The New York Times]]'': {{cite news|title=Outspoken Soviet Scientist; Andrei Dmitriyevich Sakharov|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1968/07/22/archives/outspoken-soviet-scientist-andrei-dmitriyevich-sakharov.html|newspaper=The New York Times|date=July 22, 1968 }}</ref> Sakharov was banned from conducting any military-related research and returned to FIAN to study fundamental theoretical physics.

For 12 years, until his exile to Gorky ([[Nizhny Novgorod]]) in January 1980, Sakharov assumed the role of a widely recognized and open dissident in Moscow.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book |last1=Rubenstein |first1=Joshua |title=The KGB File of Andrei Sakharov |last2=Gribanov |first2=Alexander |date=2005 |others=[[Joshua Rubenstein]], Alexander Gribanov (eds.), Ella Shmulevich, Efrem Yankelevich, Alla Zeide (trans.) |isbn=978-0-300-12937-3 |location=New Haven, CN}}</ref>{{Rp|21}} He stood vigil outside closed courtrooms, wrote appeals on behalf of more than 200 individual prisoners, and continued to write essays about the need for democratization.<ref name=":1" />{{Rp|21}}

In 1970, Sakharov was among the three founding members of the [[Committee on Human Rights in the USSR]], along with [[Valery Chalidze]] and [[Andrei Tverdokhlebov]].<ref name=":1" />{{Rp|21}} The Committee wrote appeals, collected signatures for petitions and succeeded in affiliating with several international human rights organizations. Its work was the subject of many KGB reports and brought Sakharov under increasing pressure from the government.<ref name="ReferenceA" />

Sakharov married a fellow human rights activist, [[Yelena Bonner]], in 1972.<ref>[https://www.irishtimes.com/news/activist-yelena-bonner-dies-at-88-1.878503 ''irishtimes.com'']</ref>

By 1973, Sakharov was meeting regularly with Western correspondents and holding press conferences in his apartment.<ref name=":1" />{{Rp|21}} He appealed to the [[US Congress]] to approve the 1974 [[Jackson-Vanik Amendment]] to a trade bill, which coupled trade tariffs to the Kremlin's willingness to allow freer emigration for Soviet Jews.<ref name=":1" />{{Rp|24}}