Forty-five years ago today, on January 22, 1980 (December 5, 1979), the Soviet dissident Sakharov was exiled to the city of Gorky. On January 22, 1980, the nuclear and atomic physicist and dissident Andrei Sakharov was expelled from Moscow and exiled to the city of Gorky, and Sakharov and his wife, Elena Bonnar, were given only two hours to pack up and leave. At 6 p.m., they were caught on a transport plane and flown to Gorky, 250 miles east. Earlier this month, Sakharov publicly accused the Soviet Union of sending troops to Afghanistan and demanded that the United States force the Soviet Union to withdraw.