Description
Correspondence, speeches and writings, reports, memoranda, press releases, statements,
petitions, lists, financial records, printed matter, photographs, video tapes, and sound
recordings, relating to civil rights and dissident scientists in the Soviet Union, and
especially to Andrei Sakharov, Yuri Orlov and Anatoly Shcharansky. Includes some papers
of Morris Pripstein, chairman of the organization.
Background
Scientists for Sakharov, Orlov and Shcharansky (SOS), formerly known as Scientists for
Shcharansky, is a private non-governmental organization created by a group of physicists
at the University of California, Berkeley. It came into existence in the summer of 1978
in response to the arrests of Yuri Orlov and Natan (Anatoly) Shcharansky. There was a
great deal of concern in the scientific community over the numerous violations of human
rights affecting fellow scientists in many parts of the world. In response to these
concerns, an effort was made to help individual scientists who were persecuted by their
governments and to address the question of human rights in the broader context of
scientific freedom and scientific exchange and international cooperation.