Andrei D. Sakharov, the brilliant scientist who built the Soviet hydrogen bomb and then became perhaps the world's most renowned advocate of world peace and human liberty, has died at age 68.
The Nobel Peace Prize winner died alone in his study Thursday night of an apparent heart attack, just hours after giving a speech criticizing the Soviet hierarchy, said his son-in-law, Yefrem Yankelevich.Sakharov threw away his status as national hero to openly challenge the government when many others were silent. He endured nearly seven years of internal exile.
He was freed by President Mikhail S. Gorbachev four years ago and this year won a seat in the Soviet Congress, which he used as a forum to press for more reform in his country.
At the time of his death, he was preparing a speech he was to give to Congress demanding that the Communists' constitutional guarantee on power be revoked, Yankelevich said.
The defiant activist's final words to his family were, "Tomorrow there will be battle," Yankelevich said, words that reflected Sakharov's defiant stand against the monolithic socialist system he sought to transform.
Vitaly I. Vorotnikov, a member of the Presidium of the Congress, opened Friday's session with an announcement of Sakharov's death.
President Mikhail S. Gorbachev joined the Congress in standing for a moment of silence out of respect for the Congress member.
Sergei Kovalev, a fellow human rights activist in Moscow and friend, said the body was found by Sakharov's wife, Yelena Bonner.
Bonner sat in a chair next to the body, which was laid out on a bed, said a friend who declined to be identified. A few close friends were admitted to the apartment Friday.
Sakharov had suffered from angina, but after cardiovascular tests during a visit to the United States in December 1988, doctors at Massachusetts General Hospital determined he did not need heart surgery or a pacemaker.
He had aged visibly in recent months, which were busy with international speaking trips and his work as a member of the new, competitively elected Congress.
A White House statement Friday hailed Sakharov as a historic figure whose voice "was an important dimension in the contemporary changes under way in Soviet society."
Human rights activist Natan Sharansky, who spent nine years in Soviet labor camps before immigrating to Israel in 1986, told Israel radio Friday that Sakharov "had tremendous influence among dissidents, among free people in the Soviet Union and who by his own personal example helped change the whole climate in the Soviet Union."
In Strasbourg, France, the European Parliament unanimously paid tribute to Sakharov, whose name it had given to its Human Rights Prize.
Secretary of State James A. Baker III, attending a NATO summit in Brussels, Belgium, said, "He was a tremendous force for peace and freedom."
The Congress formed a committee to organize Sakharov's funeral, the official Tass news agency said. It was a reflection of Sakharov's trek from his years as a lonely voice opposed to Kremlin policies to again becoming an honored member of society.
Born May 21, 1921, Sakharov first became known as a great scientist and was inducted into the Academy of Sciences in 1953 at age 32, the youngest-ever member. Like his father, he became a physicist.
In 1948, he joined physicist Igor Tamm in developing the hydrogen bomb and for 20 years lived and worked in secrecy, with privileges that included a good apartment, driver, high salary and government awards. But Sakharov began to worry about the morality of developing weapons of mass destruction.
He had his first brush with top Soviet officials in 1961, when he appealed to Premier Nikita Khrushchev to stop nuclear weapons tests. Khrushchev responded that scientists shouldn't meddle in politics. Two years later, the Soviet Union agreed to such limits in a treaty with the United States.
After Sakharov formed the Human Rights Committee in 1970, he became better known as a dissident leader, clashing with four Kremlin leaderships over human rights, foreign policy and the morality of the nuclear weaponry he helped create.
As an emerging dissident, Sakharov appeared to be immune to official sanctions while other prominent dissidents were forced to emigrate or sent to labor camps. But in 1973, Sakharov was warned by authorities that his interviews and statements were used by the foreign press for anti-Soviet slander and that he should be aware of the consequences.
Sakharov continued to speak out, and he and his wife attended the trials of prominent dissidents and lent their names to international appeals for prisoners of conscience in all countries to be freed.
The physicist's tireless campaigns on behalf of disarmament and human rights won him the 1975 Nobel Peace Prize, and he steadfastly argued that without international respect for human rights there could be no guarantee of peace.
He was stripped of his Soviet awards after he criticized the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and then-Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev banished him in January 1980 to Gorky, 200 miles east of Moscow.
He was released in December 1986 and recalled to Moscow by Gorbachev. He swiftly took a leading role in urging the Soviet leader to follow through on Gorbachev's twin policies of perestroika, or restructuring, and glasnost, or openness.