RYUMIN, MIKHAIL (1913–1954). Ryumin began his career in the
NKVDworking on massive forced labor projects. During World
War II, he served in military counterintelligenceand was trans-
ferred to Moscow as an interrogator. Facing personal ruin because of
a security lapse, he denounced his boss, Viktor Abakumov, as an en-
emy in a letter to Joseph Stalin. Ryumin apparently told Stalin that
Abakumov was not pursuing the search for traitors inside the party
with zeal. Following Abakumov’s arrest, Ryumin was given respon-
sibility for cases of critical importance to Stalin as chief of the De-
partment of Interrogation of Specially Important Cases. He served as
de facto deputy chief of the MGBas a lieutenant general of state se-
curity in 1952, investigating the Doctor’s Plot, torturing doctors sus-
pected of ties to Western intelligence. Stalin’s creature, Ryumin was
used by the Soviet leader to create a case that would implicate the
senior Communist Partyleadership and pave the way for a purge.
He was arrested immediately following Stalin’s death in March 1953,
made a full confession, and was executedafter a secret trial.- S –
SAKHAROV, ANDREI DMITRYEVICH (1921–1989). The father
of the Soviet hydrogen bomb, Sakharov became one of the two main
dissidenttargets of the KGBin the 1970s, along with Aleksandr
Solzhenitsyn. Sakharov, who served unselfishly as a mentor to polit-
ical and religious dissidents in the 1970s, received the KGB code
name “Asket” (Ascetic) for his involvement in dissident causes. In
the 1970s, Sakharov and his wife, Helen Bonner, edited the Chroni-
cle of Current Events, a samizdatpublication that chronicled the fate
of Soviet dissidents. Sakharov and Bonner had tremendous civil
courage. They risked everything to protect the political outcasts of
Soviet society.
In 1975 Sakharov received the Nobel Peace Prize, which he was
forbidden to travel to Stockholm to receive. Under KGB Chair Yuri
Andropov’s direction, his apartment and dacha were bugged, and
agents provocateur were inserted into his inner circle. Andropov at
Communist PartyPolitburo meetings went as far as to describe
Sakharov as “public enemy number one.” In early 1980, following230 •RYUMIN, MIKHAIL (1913–1954)06-313 P-Z.qxd 7/27/06 7:57 AM Page 230