A.28.3

Sakharov's telegram to the Minister of Health, March 5, 1971,
concerning the treatment of political prisoners Fainberg and
Borisov, who were being held in a Leningrad psychiatric hospital,
and reports on the matter by various officials.

In a telegram from 1971, noted Soviet physicist Andrei Sakharov
supports the protests of two dissidents, V. Fainberg and V. Borisov,
who have been hospitalized in a Leningrad psychiatric institution
for "asocial behavior."  An accompanying memorandum from the
USSR Minister of Health affirms the legitimacy and advisability of
hospitalizing the two dissidents in the institution, run by the
Ministry of Internal Affairs, and denies the use of mind-altering
medications in their treatment.