Sakharov Hits Soviet Arms Talks Stance : Gorbachev’s Linking of ‘Star Wars,’ Other Weapons Criticized

MOSCOW — Andrei D. Sakharov on Sunday criticized the Soviet Union’s demand for a package agreement of arms control measures, including limits on U.S. research on a space-based missile defense.

The dissident physicist said that the dispute over President Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative should be negotiated separately and that eventually the issue would “die on its own, quietly and peacefully.”

Sakharov, who arrived in Moscow last Tuesday after seven years of internal exile, voiced his criticism of Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s bargaining strategy on nuclear weapons in an interview with The Times and two European television reporters.

‘Star Wars’ Linkage

Gorbachev said after his Reykjavik summit meeting with Reagan that agreements on strategic weapons and medium-range missiles in Europe could not be concluded without a prior agreement to restrict research under the SDI project, nicknamed “Star Wars.”

Sakharov, while repeating his view that the “Star Wars” plan is a waste of money because it could be overcome by offensive countermeasures, said that it should not be linked with other arms reduction negotiations.

“It’s a pity when so much money is wasted on such things (as SDI),” he said. “But for each country, its security stands in first place. I think that we need to respect the position of other countries. . . . We should break the package and, as for SDI, it’s necessary to talk separately.

‘Would Die on Its Own’

“Then a decision could be reached much easier to compromise without hurting anyone,” he added. “I think that this problem, with time, would simply die on its own, quietly and peacefully.”

Reading from his own hand-scrawled notes, the 65-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner said: “I call for settling the question of cosmic weapons on the basis of compromises and independent of all other questions of disarmament. . . . I consider it wrong to have a firm package and connect every other proposal with SDI.”

(In an interview videotaped Friday for broadcast Sunday in the United States on ABC-TV’s “This Week With David Brinkley” show, Sakharov replied in response to a question about “Star Wars:”

(“I do not think the Strategic Defense Initiative will ever be sufficiently effective to stop a powerful opponent. I am really negative about the Strategic Defense Initiative.

(“I think that in the distant future this will be a technical possibility, but it will always be impossible from the military strategic point of view, since any strong opponent with a sufficiently high level of technology can always overcome the technical achievements of the other side at all stages. And he won’t even have to invest as much or as many resources as are being invested by the creator of the SDI.”)

Relaxing at home Sunday, Sakharov wore brown slippers, brown corduroy pants and suspenders, a gray checked shirt and a red-and-white warmup jacket in his two-bedroom apartment on Moscow’s Garden Ring road.

Wife Arranges Room

His wife, Yelena Bonner, appeared from the kitchen in an apron and helped to arrange the room for a television camera. She called her husband “Andrushka,” obviously a term of endearment. In return, he addressed her as “Lenushka.” The room, once occupied by Bonner’s mother, is now crowded with two beds, a dozen chairs, a large TV544433524including a few in English.

Sakharov, occasionally coughing and once blinking back tears when he mentioned a friend who was dying in prison camp, spoke in low but firm tones.

He indicated that his age and his desire to pursue scientific work--effectively interrupted during his seven years in the closed provincial city of Gorky--would limit his role as a champion of human rights in the future.

“I have very little physical strength--much less than (I had) 10 years ago,” he said. “I consider it my unavoidable duty to do everything I can with respect to releasing prisoners of conscience.”

Freeing him from exile and the earlier release of Anatoly Shcharansky from a long prison term, he said, represents “only the tip of the iceberg.”

Yet he added that he intends to use most of his energy in scientific studies, resuming his pre-Gorky work on elementary particles and taking part in discussions of controlled thermonuclear reactions.

As for his own role in the fight for human rights inside the Soviet Union, he said: “The movement for human rights is not a political party which is trying to get to power. So, therefore, a leader is not really necessary.”

Sakharov appeared to qualify his support of Gorbachev’s policy of glasnost , or public openness, saying it needs to be enlarged. “Everything is just in a beginning stage,” he added. “It’s very important that deeds follow words.”

Democratization, a term often used by Gorbachev, should include freedom of conscience, freedom to spread information, freedom of movement, freedom to go abroad and to return, Sakharov added.

‘Evolutionary Development’

Asked whether these were realistic objectives, he replied he favored “evolutionary development” of Soviet society.

On Afghanistan, Sakharov said he favors withdrawal of Soviet troops as quickly as possible along with international guarantees to preserve order in the country thereafter.

A U.N. force, he said, might be sent to Afghanistan to keep the peace once Soviet troops are pulled out of the country.

“Even though we know it hasn’t always been successful, I don’t see any other way,” he said.

The presence of an estimated 117,000 Soviet troops in Afghanistan since 1980, he said, was the main reason why many millions of Afghans fled their country.

Asked about his health, Sakharov said he suffered a brain spasm when he was being force-fed during a 1984 hunger strike and his doctors apparently feared he might die.

“I was feeling very bad,” he said. “My handwriting changed and in a lot of my writing I began repeating letters.

Filmed in Hospital

His KGB captors, he said, secretly filmed him in the hospital and during medical examinations to give a false impression of his actual state of health.

Gorbachev said it was still an open question whether he would require surgery for installation of a pacemaker to correct an irregular heartbeat.

“My wife made such a suggestion, but so far it’s still a suggestion,” he said. Since he stopped seeing Gorky doctors and relied on the advice of his wife, who was trained as a doctor, his condition has improved, he added.

Now, he said, he would like to visit the United States to see family members and meet scientific colleagues.

Balding, with a fringe of gray hair, Sakharov wears black-rimmed glasses. He sat on a chair with worn green upholstery during the hourlong interview with The Times and West German and Finnish television correspondents.