Fear No Evil by Natan Sharansky - 1988

New York: Random House, 1988. AU6 - A first edition (stated with numberline "98765432") hardcover book SIGNED by author on the half-title apge in very good condition in good dust jacket. Dust jacket has price clipped, less than 1.5" tear with some chipping on the front top right side, some wrinkling, chipping, crease and few small tears on the edges and corners, some scattered scuffing and rubbing, light discoloration and shelf wear. Book has some bumped corners, light discoloration and shelf wear. 9.5"x6.5", 437 pages. Satisfaction Guaranteed. Natan Sharansky, born Anatoly Borisovich Shcharansky, is an Israeli politician, human rights activist, and author who, as a refusenik in the Soviet Union during the 1970s and 1980s, spent nine years in Soviet prisons. He served as Chair of the Executive of the Jewish Agency from June 2009 to August 2018. Natan Sharansky currently serves as the Chairman of the Institute of the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP). On 15 March 1977 Sharansky was arrested on multiple charges including high treason and spying for Americans. The accusation stated that he passed to the West lists of over 1,300 refuseniks, many of whom were denied exit visas because of their knowledge of state secrets, which resulted in a publication by Robert C. Toth, "Russ Indirectly Reveal 'State Secrets': Clues in Denials of Jewish Visas". High treason carried the death penalty. The following year, in 1978, he was sentenced to 13 years of forced labor. Sharansky spent time in Moscow's Lefortovo Prison, followed by Vladimir and Chistopol prisons, where for part of the time he was placed in solitary confinement. His health deteriorated, to the point of endangering his life. Later he was detained in Perm 35, a post-Stalin-Gulag-type so-called "strict regimen colony" in Perm Oblast.[10] He kept himself sane during solitary confinement by playing chess with himself, in his head. During his imprisonment, he was force-fed at least 35 times, which he describes as "a sort of torture". Sharansky also opposes force-feeding of Palestinian detainees. Sharansky appeared in a March 1990 edition of National Geographic magazine. The article, "Last Days of the Gulag" by Mike Edwards, profiles through photographs and text one of the few remaining Soviet prison labor camps. The article featured a photo of Natan Sharansky and his wife Avital in their home in Israel viewing photos of the same Gulag where he had been imprisoned, but as it appeared in 1990. Sharansky remarked in the article that after viewing images of the prisoner's faces, he could discern that the protocol of oppression was still at work. The author also showed Sharansky a photo of the cold isolation cell where he had himself been confined. Sharansky commented with irony that conditions had improved slightly: the stark cell now featured a thin bench bolted to the middle of the floor. He said that if that bench had existed when he was there, he could have slept on it, albeit uncomfortably. As a result of an international campaign led by his wife, Avital Sharansky (including assistance from East German lawyer Wolfgang Vogel, New York Congressman Benjamin Gilman, and Rabbi Ronald Greenwald), Sharansky was released on 11 February 1986 as part of a larger exchange of detainees. He was the first political prisoner released by Mikhail Gorbachev. Sharansky and three low-level Western spies (Czech citizen Jaroslav Javorský and West German citizens Wolf-Georg Frohn, and Dietrich Nistroy) were exchanged for Czech spies Karl Koecher and Hana Koecher held in the United States, Soviet spy Yevgeni Zemlyakov, Polish spy Marian Zacharski, and East German spy Detlef Scharfenorth (the latter three held in West Germany). The men were released in two stages, with Sharansky freed first then whisked away, accompanied by the United States Ambassador to West Germany, Richard R. Burt. The exchange took place on the Glienicke Bridge between West Berlin and East Germany, which had been used before for this purpose.. Signed by Author. First Edition. Hard Cover. Very Good/Good. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall.