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MY COUNTRY AND THE WORLD by Andrei D. Sakharov

MY COUNTRY AND THE WORLD

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Pub Date: Oct. 17th, 1975
Publisher: Knopf

Written this spring, a brief, succinct statement of the well-known Russian physicist's new emphasis on ""not the 'optimistic futurology'"" of past writings, but ""the dangers, illusions, and dramas of today."" Sakharov joins Alexander Solzhenitsyn in warning the West against going soft on Communism. The U.S. should have been more ""resolute"" in ""promptly dispatching a large expeditionary force, including the U.N."" to South Vietnam to ""oppose the totalitarian threat in Southeast Asia."" Senator Jackson's approach to East-West trade is sound; the U.S. should not become ""dependent on the totalitarian countries"" for raw materials. The Soviet Union is ""a sea of human misery"" which should undergo ""partial denationalization"" both economically and socially. Liberal intellectuals in the West ought to forsake their ""left-wing faddishness"" and count their blessings. Any disarmament efforts must focus on dismantling the USSR's capacity for massive retalation. Sakharov distinguishes himself from Solzhenitsyn by calling for progress and an end to narrow ideologies; his own moral commitments seem constricted, to say the least, as he focuses on aid to South Vietnamese refugees and protests against Rudolf Hess' life sentence! The book speaks for itself.