[From Memoirs. (c) 1990 by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. Translated by Richard Lourie]

[Under Stalin and Khrushchev, the biologist Trofim Lysenko terrorized Soviet scientists. A ruthless political infighter, Lysenko rejected Mendelian genetics, favoring the ideas of Ivan Michurin, who held that modifications acquired by one generation of plants and animals could be passed on to future generations. Lysenko's notions poisoned Soviet agriculture--and science--for decades. Sakharov, who considered Lysenko a crackpot and a bully, unhesitatingly confronted him and his Mafia.]

In 1950 a commission visited the Installation to check up on senior scientists. I was called in and asked what I thought of the chromosome theory of heredity; after Stalin's endorsement of Lysenko, belief in Mendelian genetics was regarded as an indication of disloyalty. I replied that the theory seemed scientifically correct. The commission members exchanged glances but said nothing. But Lev Altshuler, who had played a major role in the development of atomic charges, gave the same answer and faced dismissal.

When Avraami Zavenyagin, a KGB lieutenant general and a top nuclear weapons program official, visited the Installation, I urged him to appeal the decision. Zavenyagin paid close heed to scientists and understood their role in the project. He said, "I'm aware of Altshuler's hooligan conduct. You say he's done a lot and will be useful in the future. Fine. We won't take action now, but we'll watch how he behaves."

How did Lysenko and his gang maintain their positions through the Khrushchev era, when it was no longer a simple matter of using the tactics of denunciation and pseudo philosophy that had served them so well in the 1930s and 1940s? Lysenko was always ready with a new idea that promised the sort of quick fix for Soviet agriculture that Khrushchev found irresistible. (And when that fell through, Lysenko would be ready with a new, equally surefire idea.) Even more important: the party agriculture bureaucracy was full of people who supported Lysenko and bitterly opposed proper experiments as a threat to their vested interests.

In June 1964 regular elections for membership in the academy were held. The biologists had voted to elevate Nikolai Nuzhdin to full member. Nuzhdin was one of Lysenko's closest associates, an accomplice in his persecution of genuine scientists. As I recalled the tragedy of Soviet genetics and its martyrs, my indignation boiled up. When Nuzhdin was placed in nomination, I raised my hand. I said:

"The academy's charter sets very high standards for its members with respect to both scientific merit and civic responsibility. Nuzhdin does not satisfy the criteria. He and Lysenko bear the responsibility for the shameful backwardness of Soviet biology and of genetics in particular, for the dissemination of pseudoscientific views, for the degradation of learning and for the defamation, firing, arrest, even death of many genuine scientists. I urge you to vote against Nuzhdin."

There was a deafening silence followed by cries of "Shame!"--but also by applause in the greater part of the hall. Lysenko exclaimed in fury, "People like Sakharov should be locked up and put on trial!"

The physicist Pyotr Kapitsa told me later that Leonid Ilyichev, head of the Central Committee's agitation and propaganda department and a member of the academy's presidium, had been upset by my speech and wished to take the floor. He asked, "Who's that speaking?" "That's the father of the hydrogen bomb," Kapitsa replied. Ilyichev apparently decided it would be more politic to remain silent.

Nuzhdin's bid to become a full member of the academy failed.

I heard that my speech against Nuzhdin had enraged Khrushchev to the point that he stomped his feet and ordered the KGB to gather compromising material on me. Khrushchev supposedly said, "First Sakharov tried to stop the hydrogen bomb test, and now he's poking his nose again where it doesn't belong."

Soon afterward, in October 1964, Khrushchev was vacationing by the Black Sea when he was summoned to an urgent meeting of the Presidium. He rushed to the Kremlin and stalked into the room where the Presidium was in session. "What's going on here?" he demanded. Told that the members were discussing his removal from office, he cried, "Are you crazy? I'll have you all arrested right now!" Khrushchev phoned Rodion Malinovsky, the Defense Minister. "As Commander in Chief, I order you to arrest the conspirators at once." Malinovsky replied that he would carry out the decision of the Central Committee. Vladimir Semichastny, the KGB chairman, also refused to help.

Khrushchev's fall led to the final rout of Lysenko and his supporters. The previously "disgraced" geneticist Nikolai Dubinin was soon elected to the academy and was made director of the Institute of Genetics in 1966. For the next few years, Dubinin sent me New Year's cards recalling how valuable my intervention had been.