Western Scientists’ Reactions to Andrei Sakharov’s Human Rights Struggle in the Soviet Union, 1968–1989

After a brief look at the young Andrei Sakharov, this article examines expressions of an awakening to the human rights question in Sakharov’s own thinking as well as that of the physicist’s foreign colleagues. This article then scrutinizes the circumstances and reflections associated with the boycott by Western scientists of their relations with the Soviet Union in retaliation for the violation of the rights of dissident Soviet scientists, and Sakharov in particular. It concludes by analyzing the latter’s exclusive personal features that may help understand an unprecedented movement of solidarity of world science in defense of one of its most illustrious members.