Opinion

Opinion Don’t Link U.S.-Soviet Exchanges To Human Rights Author:HERBERT ABRAMS Date: June 13, 1988 One of the major controversies surrounding exchanges between U.S. and Soviet scientists is whether action on human rights should be a prerequisite for communication. A number of scientists have argued that it should. A few years ago, for example, the National Academy of Sciences canceled formal exchanges with the Soviet Union because of the plight of a number of Soviet scientists, particularly physicist Andrey Sakharov. And in the fall of 1986, Yuri Orlov, the distinguished Soviet dissident, speaking before a committee of the National Academy of Sciences, said. “The right thing to do is to reject scientific contacts for moral reasons.” The International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War has. taken a different approach. As a confederation of 160,000 physicians with groups in 55 countries, the IPPNW has chosen to recognize the reality that the countries in which its member doctors live have differing political systems—democracies and dictatorships (military or political) —and a variety of economic systems—capitalist, socialist, communist, pluralist. Many of these systems are characterized by a broad array of abuses that are of deep concern to all of us. As an organization, we could easily have occupied ourselves with human rights, Mghanistan, emigration policy, Grenada, Nicaragua, and life in the urban ghettos. But it would have fragmented our real mission. To predicate dialogue with physicians and scientists in the Soviet Union and other countries on the approval of the internal practices of each nation in which they live would have been an exercise in paralyzing futility. Dissident Dissent The IPPNW has been attacked for its single-minded concentration on one issue. The group’s efforts to ban nuclear testing and reduce massive stockpiles are “an example of the completely wrong way of approaching the subject,” Orlov said in a speech last year. Educating the public in the East and West on the medical consequences of nuclear war, he said, “plays into the hands of Soviet propagandists” and “supports the repressive apparatus of the Soviet Union.” Orlov was dismayed that we are not involved as an organization with the issue of human rights. But would a surgeon refuse to remove a cancer because the patient is a racist? The concept of linking exchanges and dialogues to human rights virtually precludes the completion of binding arms control agreements unless we are satisfied with the internal conditions in the Soviet Union. It suggests that the semi-annual arms control meetings of our scientists from the NAS with those of the Soviet Academy of Science, begun in 1980 and fruitfully exploring issues of importance to this day, presumably would have to be prescribed. It is a prescription for disaster at the international level There are matters in which the interests of the United States and the USSR coincide. One of these is preventing the destruction of the Northern Hemisphere. In the early meetings with Soviet physicians from which IPPNW developed, we were fully aware of the different backgrounds from which we emerged. Our own freedom to criticize and speak our minds contrasted with the constricted society in which the Soviets lived. Our common ground lay in anxiety about the nuclear war. By establishing a dialogue on the major threat to life and health of this century, IPPNW has been able to establish bridges between countries. These bridges permit communcation that may lead to a safer world. But the same bridges also afford opportunities for individuals to further the cause of human rights. If Western physicists had followed Orlov’s advice and rejected “scientific contacts for moral reasons,” for example, how would they have met Orlov in the first place and developed such a strong personal interest in working for his release? While IPPNW is a single issue group, each of us, as individuals, has a larger agenda. Some time ago, many of us active in IPPNW and Physicians for Social Responsibiity (PSR) organized Physicians for Human Rights (PHR). One of its first acts was to invite Yuri Orlov to meet with the group in Boston to discuss human rights in the Soviet Union. The success of such organizations depends on the sharpness of their focus on a single problem. The contacts established by IPPNW have created opportunities for individual acts that would otherwise have been impossible. Take the case of Vladimir Brodsky, a physician who was one of the founders of the Moscow Trust Group—the independent peace movement—and who was sentenced to prison for his activities. In June 1986, Eugene Chazov, the head of the Soviet branch of IPPNW, told us that Brodsky’s case would soon be reviewed by Soviet authorities in response to requests from individual U.S. physicians. In July, I was informed that Brodsky had not been released. Chazov was coming to Washington in September for the World Congress of Cardiology. On the day before the Congress, a number of us—Chazov, Bernard Lown, myself—would speak about the medical consequences of nuclear war and physicians’ and scientists’ responsibilities at a meeting honoring the eminent cardiologist Paul Dudley White. I sent a letter to Chazov a month before the Congress reminding him about Brodsky. “I am hopeful that we will soon hear that his case has been resolved in a favorable light,” I wrote. Profound Joy On September 14, 1986, I had breakfast with Chazov in Washington. He informed me that Brodsky’s wife had already left the Soviet Union and was in Vienna, and that Brodsky himself was now back in Moscow and would be released within a week. Two weeks later, my wife and I were awakened in California by a phone call. The caller was Mrs. Brodsky, who told me that she and her husband were now out of the Soviet Union and wished to express their appreciation. She soon put Dr. Brodsky on. Although his English was not as good as hers, it was enough to convey his profound sense of joy at being reunited with his wife, and being able to make his choices freely. Subsequently, I received a letter from a U.S. organization concerned with the fate of Soviet refuseniks. “We are writing to express our profound appreciation for your very effective activity on behalf of Vladimir Brodsky,” it said. Months later, I had dinner in Palo Alto with Brodsky and his wife. He is a vivid witness to the terrible nature of Soviet prisons and to Soviet abuses. When I asked him if Western physicians and scientists should discontinue our common effort with the Soviets to heighten international awareness of the threat of nuclear war, he said “Absolutely not. If you stop talking, you will have no leverage at all1 and I might still be in prison.” In 1980, Sakharov said in a letter published in the West: “Despite all that has happened. I feel that the questions of war and peace and disarmament are so crucial that they must be given absolute priority, even in the most difficult circumstances.” We agree with Sakharov. It is far better to estab-lish contact with Soviet scientists—and subsequently to work as individuals for human rights—than to make contact dependent on prior progress in human rights. Herbert Abrams is professor of radiology, Stanford University School of Medicine, and a member-in-residence, Stanford University Center for International Security and Arms Control He was the founding vice president of IPPNW

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