The New York Review Abroad

by Robert B. Silvers

  “Don’t say I said this, but there are no issues here,” I was told this summer by a high-placed Salvadoran. “There are only ambitions.” He meant of course not that there were no ideas in conflict, but that the conflicting ideas were held exclusively by people he knew; that, whatever the outcome of any fighting or negotiation or coup or countercoup, the Casa Presidencial would ultimately be occupied not by campesinos and Maryknolls but by the already entitled, by Guillermo Ungo or Joaquín Villalobos or even by Roque Dalton’s son, Juan José Dalton, or by Juan José Dalton’s comrade in the FPL, José Antonio Morales Carbonell, the guerrilla son of José Antonio Morales Ehrlich, a former member of the Duarte junta, who had himself been in exile during the Romero regime. In an open letter written shortly before his arrest in San Salvador in June of 1980, José Antonio Morales Carbonell had charged his father with an insufficient appreciation of “Yankee imperialism.” José Antonio Morales Carbonell and Juan José Dalton tried together to enter the United States last summer, for a speaking engagement in San Francisco, but were refused visas by the embassy in Mexico City.

  Whatever the issues were that had divided Morales Carbonell and his father and Roque Dalton and Joaquín Villalobos, the prominent Salvadoran to whom I was talking seemed to be saying, they were issues that fell somewhere outside the lines normally drawn to indicate “left” and “right.” That this man saw la situación as only one more realignment of power among “the entitled”, a conflict of “ambitions” rather than “issues,” was, I recognized, what many people would call a conventional bourgeois view of civil conflict, and offered no solutions, but the people with solutions to offer were mainly somewhere else, in Mexico or Panama or Washington.

  The place brings everything into question. One afternoon when I had run out of the Halazone tablets I dropped every night in a pitcher of tap water (a demented gringa gesture, I knew even then, in a country where anyone who had not been born there was at least mildly ill, including the nurse at the American embassy), I walked across the street from the Camino Real to the Metrocenter, which is referred to locally as “Central America’s Largest Shopping Mall.” I found no Halazone at the Metrocenter but became absorbed in making notes about the mall itself, about the Muzak playing “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” and “American Pie” (“… singing, This will be the day that I die …”) although the record store featured a cassette called Classics of Paraguay, about the pâté de foie gras for sale in the supermarket, about the guard who did the weapons-check on everyone who entered the supermarket, about the young matrons in tight Sergio Valente jeans, trailing maids and babies behind them and buying towels, big beach towels printed with maps of Manhattan that featured Bloomingdale’s; about the number of things for sale that seemed to suggest a fashion for “smart drinking,” to evoke modish cocktail hours. There were bottles of Stolichnaya vodka packaged with glasses and mixer, there were ice buckets, there were bar carts of every conceivable design, displayed with sample bottles.

  This was a shopping center that embodied the future for which El Salvador was presumably being saved, and I wrote it down dutifully, this being the kind of “color” I knew how to interpret, the kind of inductive irony, the detail that was supposed to illuminate the story. As I wrote it down I realized that I was no longer much interested in this kind of irony, that this was a story that would not be illuminated by such details, that this was a story that would perhaps not be illuminated at all, that this was perhaps even less a “story” than a true noche obscura. As I waited to cross back over the Boulevard de los Heroes to the Camino Real I noticed soldiers herding a young civilian into a van, their guns at the boy’s back, and I walked straight ahead, not wanting to see anything at all.

  —November 4, 1982

  (This was the first part of a three-part article.)

  * El Salvador: The Face of Revolution, by Robert Armstrong and Janet Shenk (South End Press, 1982), p. 11.

  9

  The Sakharovs in Gorky

  Natalya Viktorovna Hesse and Vladimir Tolz

  Yuri Andropov, the longest-serving chief of the KGB and Party leader since 1982, the destroyer of the Prague Spring and planner of the Afghan invasion, the man who sent Andrei Sakharov into exile, was said to enjoy listening to jazz records. The jazz-lover died in February 1984.

  But life in Gorky remained a torment for Sakharov. Things would get still worse: hunger strikes, followed by force-feeding and months in solitary confinement. Both Sakharov and his wife and fellow human rights activist, Elena Bonner, were badly in need of medical treatment, but doctors turned them away. They were abused, robbed, publicly vilified, kept in isolation, and bullied in a thousand little ways that added up to a torture session that never stopped.

  And all this for behaving like civilized human beings who insist on thinking for themselves and expressing their views. Sakharov and Bonner were not violent revolutionaries or radicals. They were humane, and they wished to live in a society that was humane. And that was enough to merit punishment from a state that felt threatened by one man and one women who refused to conform to the cynicism of dictatorship.

  —I.B.

  Note: Natalya Viktorovna Hesse, an old and trusted friend of Nobel prize winner Andrei Sakharov and his family, arrived in Vienna from the Soviet Union on February 5, 1984. Hesse, who is now seventy, has known Elena Georgievna Bonner, Sakharov’s wife, for more than thirty years and Sakharov himself since 1970. This friendship, as well as her own views, was not approved of by the Soviet regime. Of her decision to emigrate to the United States to join her son and his family Hesse said:

  The pressure against me was intensified. My apartment was searched, I was interrogated, I was called to the KGB many times for all kinds of talks.… But this was not the reason for my leaving the country. I was never afraid of them [the Soviet authorities], and I would have been able to resist them further.… But there was a change in my personal circumstances, and I decided to leave. And the KGB provided all kinds of “assistance.”

  The purpose of this “assistance” is quite clear. According to Hesse, the KGB is determined to isolate the Sakharovs completely and to deprive them of any help from their friends.

  Before her departure from the Soviet Union, Natalya Hesse met privately with Sakharov in Gorky and visited Elena Bonner in Moscow. She has brought alarming news of the deterioration of Sakharov’s health and of a new heart seizure suffered in January by Elena Bonner, who had still not completely recovered from the previous one. Upon her arrival in Vienna, Hesse was interviewed by Vladimir Tolz, a former dissident who is now a research analyst for Radio Liberty in Munich. The following is a translation of parts of the interview, which was recorded in Russian by Radio Liberty.

  TOLZ: Please tell us about your meeting with Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov.

  HESSE: This was our seventh meeting over the past few years since his forced exile to Gorky. In this case, as also in the case of the six other meetings (I will talk about the first one separately), the meeting took place on the street, at a prearranged place and a prearranged hour. We didn’t have much time. I already knew that I would be going away and I came to say goodbye to him. He has aged much, he is full of worries concerning the health of his wife, Elena Georgievna.… But he is not broken, he is not bending; he is full of worry and he is physically weak, but he is strong in spirit as always.…

  Between incoherent and hurried exchanges—because we had only a few hours at our disposal—between trivia and important topics—which we touched upon sometimes in more detail, sometimes with laughter or with sorrow—between questions about the life of our dear ones—who has been arrested, whose homes have been searched—we recalled Orwell, and I think this was not incidental. We have lived to see the year predicted by Orwell—1984. And it may seem strange to a Western person, it may seem that Orwell has nothing to do with real life, that his terrible utopia still remains a utopia or maybe an anti-utopia. However, the Soviet authorities—our dear KGB—have overtaken Orwell by four whol
e years. In 1980, Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov and Elena Georgievna Bonner were plunged into a world that surpassed Orwell’s nightmarish fantasies.

  I will try to explain concretely what I mean. In 1980, I had some luck. I arrived in Gorky on January 25, immediately after the seizure and forced transportation of Andrei Dmitrievich to Gorky. His routine at that time had not yet been set; the authorities didn’t know how to organize it, and I was able to stay with them for a month. Their entire apartment is bugged, there isn’t a corner where each sigh, each cough, each footstep, not to speak of conversations, can’t be overheard. Only thoughts can remain secret, if they haven’t been put down on paper, because if the Sakharovs go to the bakery or to the post office to mail a letter, the KGB agents will search the place. They will either photograph or steal the written thought.

  Andrei Dmitrievich, with his weak heart, his inability to walk up even five or seven steps without pausing for breath and trying to quiet his heartbeat, is forced to carry a bag that I, for example, can’t lift. When once we went into a shop, he asked me to watch over this bag, but I wanted to see what was on a shelf, and I had to drag the bag after me. I just could not lift it. In this bag Andrei Dmitrievich carries a radio receiver, because it would be damaged if left at home, all his manuscripts—both scientific and public ones—diaries, photos, personal notes. He has to carry all this around with him. I think all this must weigh no less than thirty pounds. And this man with a bad heart—suffering from acute hypertension—is forced to carry this bag every time he leaves home, even if it is only for ten minutes.

  There is in the apartment a special generator that creates additional interference over and above the interferences caused by conventional jammers in all cities of the Soviet Union. This produces a terrible growl that drowns even the jammer’s noise. In order to hear at least some free world voice, one has to go away from the house. It would be better to go out of town, but Andrei Dmitrievich cannot take even one step beyond the city limit, cannot go past the sign with the word “Gorky” on it. He is immediately turned back, he is denied such a possibility, although there is no published verdict condemning him to such isolation.

  This is complete lawlessness on the part of the so-called competent bodies. It is very interesting that the recent law on citizenship uses this term, “competent bodies,” without any explanation. This is one example of the extent of illegality in our state. There cannot exist a judicial term that is not and cannot be explained. However, the law states that some cases must be reviewed by the MVD, while in some other instances, as prescribed by other articles, the same cases are supposed to be dealt with by “competent bodies.” It is not clear who these “competent bodies” are. When the term is used in the press, one can only guess who and what they are. But when this is not explained in the text of the law, one may only make a helpless gesture and just wonder.

  TOLZ: Natalya Viktorovna, you were going to tell us about your first visit to Gorky in greater detail.

  HESSE: Yes. At that time I managed to stay there for a month, together with Sakharov and Elena Georgievna, who, however, often traveled to Moscow in an effort to do something there to make Andrei Dmitrievich’s life easier. A lot of interesting things were going on. There was a stream of letters, vast numbers of them, ten and occasionally a hundred a day. After a few days I began to sort them out—having decided to take a look—because there were all kinds of letters: some greeting and supporting him, some bewildered, some neutral ones in which people asked him to explain his position—asking whether what the Soviet papers wrote about him was true.

  But some of the letters were abusive—there were curses, there were threats. Some letters were, I would say, of an extreme nature. One letter was, in my view, very funny. We all laughed terribly hard when it arrived: “We, second-grade pupils, sternly condemn the position of Academician Sakharov, who wants to unleash an atomic war between the Soviet Union’s peaceful democracy and the rotten Western world. Shame on Academician Sakharov! Second-grade pupils.” Such a letter was obviously dictated by an illiterate teacher.

  Another extreme letter was also very interesting and somehow simply touched one’s heartstrings. It began with some swear words, but not obscene, no. Then it said: “I am seventy-four years old. I am a construction engineer. I live well and have a separate room in a hostel. The water pump is about three hundred yards from where I live, and I have to carry firewood from the woods, but still I am a patriot. And your studies were paid for by Soviet money, but you have now betrayed your homeland.” This letter was from a woman who represents one of the most terrible types of Soviet patriot. When a person exists at the bottom level of human life and does not realize it—imagining that he lives well—this is very frightening.

  After about a week I said: “Listen, these letters must be sorted out, so that we can see the result. There are already many hundreds of them. I’ll review them and make an assessment, and then we’ll see what they add up to.” When all this was done, I loudly announced: “Well, this is terribly interesting: 70 percent are messages of greeting, 17 percent are neutral or expressing bewilderment, and only 13 percent are abusive ones.” The result of this careless remark—made aloud—was very unexpected. Letters with greetings and voicing approval simply ceased to arrive. From the very next day we began to receive only abusive letters. This was evidence of very attentive and well-organized monitoring and careful analysis of all conversations within the apartment.

  The second incident happened after I had left. I heard about it from Elena Georgievna. She had walked to the window and, looking at the joyless, empty lot covered with trash and at the highway beyond with roaring trucks passing by, said: “From the window in Moscow one can see Red Square, but from this window, only a bit of the street, trash, and all kinds of shit. It is better not to look out the window.” And then turning to Andrei Dmitrievich, who was standing beside her, she said: “You know, Andrei, I think I’ll photograph this, take a picture and send it to the West. Let them look at this wonderful landscape.” The next day three trucks arrived and soldiers collected all the trash on the empty lot in front of the windows. Commenting on this, Elena Georgievna used to say jokingly: “Thus I’ll bring order to Gorky.”

  I have said that Sakharov was not allowed to leave Gorky’s city limits, to step beyond the sign that read “Gorky.” But the house itself, although within the city limits, is located near the borderline. Then there is a ravine—also still within the city limits; it is a sort of empty lot with a thick aspen grove. Andrei Dmitrievich and Elena Georgievna once decided to take a walk along a narrow path and—in accordance with the rules—two persons in civilian clothes tagged after them. The Sakharovs exchanged some glances and, having gone separately in different directions away from the path, hid in the thick bushes. Having lost sight of them, the agents began running to and fro. Within three minutes a helicopter arrived on the spot, descended to about five meters above the ground, and KGB agents with scared, fierce faces stared out of all the windows, trying to locate the Sakharovs. Thus it is impossible to hide from the KGB’s “almighty eye” anywhere—even in thick aspen bushes.

  TOLZ: Natalya Viktorovna, a defamation campaign against Sakharov has become especially intense recently in the Soviet press, as well as in some books—one by Nikolai Yakovlev in particular. Please, tell us in greater detail about this stage of Sakharov’s persecution, which began, I think, about a year ago.

  HESSE: First of all, I will tell you about the Yakovlev episode. Yakovlev has expressed himself in the most shocking manner. His writing cannot be called anything but slop. His book CIA Against the USSR [which included attacks on both Sakharov and his wife] was published, I think, in a first edition of 200,000 copies and was later reprinted several times with some changes (one should remember that with changes amounting to 20 percent of the original text, one can collect new royalties).1 He published this in the magazine Smena, which has a circulation of more than a million copies, and, finally, having reworked it and having added a
good dose of anti-Semitism, he published it in Chelovek i Zakon [“Man and the Law”]. This sounds even more paradoxical, since this periodical has a circulation of more than eight million. So, altogether his ideas have a circulation of about ten million.

  Well, during our last meeting, Andrei Dmitrievich told me in detail about his encounter with Yakovlev, who, strangely enough, was allowed to come to Gorky. Sakharov was very elaborate in his narration, laughing and at the same time expressing horror at the extent to which a man can debase himself.

  His doorbell rang. Elena Georgievna was in Moscow at the time. Sakharov was alone and was very much surprised. He decided that it must be a telegram. He opened the door. There was an unfamiliar man standing there with a woman—a man advanced in years (“Of my own age,” Andrei Dmitrievich said). Andrei Dmitrievich let them in, and the woman immediately asked whether she could smoke in the apartment. Being an extremely well-brought-up person, Andrei Dmitrievich showed them to the largest room, right across from the entrance, said, “Please go in,” and hurried into the kitchen to get an ashtray, since he himself does not smoke.

  When he returned, his guests were already seated. He only had time to think: “Maybe some physicians have finally come from the Academy of Sciences in order to have me hospitalized.” He thought so because a few months earlier some physicians had come and had concluded that he was urgently in need of hospitalization. But these two were no medical doctors. The visitor by this time had already managed to display a pile of books, and said: “I am Nikolai Nikolaievich Yakovlev. As you know, I am a writer. Or maybe you don’t know this. But I brought you my books as a present and, if you agree, I will autograph them for you.”

  Andrei Dmitrievich was somewhat taken aback by this extreme impudence and said: “I don’t need your presents.” He waved his hand, and one of the books fell to the floor. Nobody picked it up—neither Yakovlev nor Andrei Dmitrievich. But Yakovlev continued: “Well, I have published, you know, some articles. And so we have received many inquiries, and I am unable to answer them all. Therefore, I came here to ask you some questions and to get answers that we could relate to our readers.”