Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov today sent an appeal to the National Conference on Soviet Jewry urging international support for a symposium on Jewish culture scheduled to take place in Moscow Dec. 21. “The authorities of the Soviet Union are trying to prevent the holding of the Moscow symposium,” he wrote. “It is important not only for Jewish culture but for all the national cultures of our country.” Sakharov stressed. He added that “such a national cultural undertaking may become an important president after the absence for decades of free development of a national culture,” On Nov. 23 Soviet authorities searched the homes of the symposium’s organizers in Moscow and took copies of papers prepared for the symposium.
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