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Being Sharansky: on Russia, Israel, 'Reaganite readings'...

Article Excerpt
THE other day, someone asked me how old Sharansky was, and I said, "Oh, about 55." (In fact, Sharansky is 57, born in January 1948, a few months before the modern Israel.) My friend was surprised that Sharansky was so young. The ex-Soviet dissident, now a key Israeli, has been famous and important for a long time. He was only 25 when he applied for his exit visa, and not long after that he became the face of the "refuseniks."

In his astoundingly great memoir, Fear No Evil--published in 1988--he recounts the day of his release, when he was delivered into the hands of the American ambassador to West Germany, Richard Burt.

All I remember from my talk with the ambassador is how astonished I was that he was only thirty-nine. "You made your career so quickly," I said. "Well," he replied, "you're also very young and made a career quickly." "Yes, but in my case the KGB helped. I trust that your achievement had nothing to do with them."

Sharansky spent nine years in the Gulag, a harrowing time in which he demonstrated what resistance is. More than 400 of those days were spent in punishment cells; more than 200 were spent on hunger strikes. His refusal to concede anything to the Soviet state was almost superhuman. This was true to the very last. When they relinquished him to the East Germans, they told him to walk straight to a waiting car--"Don't make any turns." Sharansky zig-zagged his way to that car.

Once in Israel, he might have sat back to be the hero, but the swim of events would not allow him to do so, and he entered politics. At the beginning of May, he resigned from the cabinet of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, in protest of the prime minister's "disengagement" plan--Sharansky considers it reckless. He is now associated with Jerusalem's Shalem Center. Last fall, Sharansky came out with his second book, The Case for Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror. It applies lessons gleaned from the Cold War to the current conflict--it is very, very hard on advocates of "stability." President Bush read the book while it was still in galleys. He then met with Sharansky in the Oval Office. Later, the president told the Washington Times, "If...

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