KGB on its actions to discredit the decision of the Nobel Prize Committee [¹] to award the Peace Prize to SAKHAROV [R: 15 October 1975]. 4 pp (excerpt).

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[page one of four]

Secret

15 October 1975, No. 1218-A

Moscow

To the CPSU Central Committee

 Measures to discredit the decision of the Nobel Committee to award the Peace Prize to A.D. Sakharov

[…]

Instruct the Central Committee Departments for Research & Educational Institutions and for Propaganda, together with the Presidium of the USSR Academy of Sciences, to prepare on behalf of the Presidium of the USSR Academy of Sciences and leading Soviet scholars and scientists an Open Letter denouncing the act of the Nobel Committee in awarding the Peace Prize to a person who has taken the path of anti-constitutional and anti-social activities. This compromises the said organisation and prompts regret. The said letter, signed by members of the /…

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[page two]

Presidium and by leading Soviet scholars and scientists is to be published in the newspaper “Izvestiya”;

The newspaper “Trud” is to publish a sketch in which the award to Sakharov of the Nobel Peace Prize worth 122,000 dollars is presented as a handout from reactionary Western circles for his constant slander of the Soviet social and State system;

Use APN to promote materials in the West arguing that to award the peace prize to a person who is against a relaxation in international tension and interprets events in Chile, Vietnam, Cambodia and the Middle East from an extremely reactionary viewpoint, is contrary to the policy of the Soviet State and of all progressive forces in the world, aimed at a relaxation in international tension and disarmament;

In the West promote articles via KGB channels that show the absurdity of the Nobel Committee’s decision in awarding a peace prize to someone who invented a weapon of mass destruction;

[…]

A draft of the Central Committee Resolution is attached.

We request authorisation.

Chairman of the State Security Committee

[Signed] Andropov

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[pages three and four – text of draft Resolution]

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NOTES

1. On 9 October 1975, the Nobel Committee of the Norwegian Parliament awarded the annual Nobel Prize for “Activities contributing to Peace” to Andrei Dmitrievich SAKHAROV, then aged 54 (see “Sakharov’s Friends and Enemies”, CCE 38.1).
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General

1. Notes and additions by translator and editor are bracketed thus [ ];
2. Text added by hand is indicated in italic script;
3. when a handwritten phrase, figure or word has been inserted in a previously typed document it is indicated by underlined italic script.

Translation & annotation, John Crowfoot

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