Who was Andrei Sakharov?
when his life took its fateful turn, Andrei Sakharov was not yet known to the world. He was 41 years old, a decorated Soviet physicist developing atomic weapons of terrifying power deep in the heart of the Soviet Union. The U.S. and the U.S.S.R. were locked in a frenzied contest for nuclear superiority. That September the Kremlin was to conduct two massive atmospheric tests of bombs that Sakharov had helped design. Sakharov feared the radioactive fallout from the second test would kill hundreds of thousands of civilians.
Read the full transcript Richard Lourie translator of Sakharovs memoirs and author of the first full biography of the Russian physicist Tatiana Yankelevich daughter of Sakharovs wife Elena Bonner and assistant director of the Andrei Sakharov Archives and Human Rights Center at Brandeis University Originally Aired: 9/26/2002
