Gorbachev repeatedly has shown his eagerness to discourage our plans for SDI, and has already been drawn to the conference tables at Geneva and Reykjavik for that purpose. Given the many substantial reasons he already had to release Sakharov from Gorky, the fact that Sakharov would add his enormous prestige to the critics of SDI might have been an additional factor in tipping the scales in favor of release at this time.
Sakharov's views on SDI have not been reported in any detail in the press, and it may be useful to attach here the transcript of a phone conversation of December 30, 1986, between Sakharov and his American representative and son-in-law Efrem Yankelevich, which the latter has been kind enough to share with me and others.
Nothing in these remarks is to be interpreted as implying that Sakharov's position has been influenced by a desire to accommodate to Gorbachev's ...
