ABSTRACT
In a taped US television interview broadcast from Moscow on June 14, 1987, Academician Andrei Sakharov reiterated his petition to Gorbachev for a full and unconditional amnesty for all political prisoners and prisoners of conscience in the Soviet Union. Sakharov returned to Moscow from his exile in Gorkii in December 1986. This release aroused great hopes of renewed activism in the dissident community. In interviews with Western correspondents after his return to Moscow, however, Sakharov spoke in favor of Gorbachev's policies, including economic reform, "liberalization" in the cultural sphere, and arms negotiations with the United States. Sakharov's statements disappointed many of his former associates who suspected him of having a "soft spot" for Gorbachev and his policies. The skepticism about glasnost and perestroika grew stronger in the statements of émigrés who had been prominent members of the human rights and democratic movements while in the Soviet Union.
