“Fortunately for the stability of the world, the difference between the technical-economic potentials of the Soviet Union and the United States is not so great that one of the sides could undertake a "preventive aggression" without an almost inevitable risk of a destructive retaliatory blow. This situation would not be changed by a broadening of the arms race through the development of anti-missile defenses.”

—  Andrei Sakharov

Progress, Coexistence and Intellectual Freedom (1968), Dangers, The Threat of Nuclear War

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Andrei Sakharov57
Soviet nuclear physicist and human rights activist 1921–1989

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