In 1968, Sakharov had published "Progress, Coexistence and Intellectual Freedom," a plea for nuclear disarmament emphasizing the role of human rights.
Mathematician Aleksandr Yesenin-Volpin and physicist Boris Zukerman became legal experts for the group.
[1] Unlike its predecessor, the Initiative Group for the Defense of Human Rights in the USSR, the Committee functioned within a framework defined by its founding statutes.
[5]: 78 The Committee was the first independent association in the Soviet Union to receive membership in an international organization.
These measures included compromising Chalidze's reputation, stripping him of Soviet citizenship [during his visit to the United States], and inciting disagreement and dissension among the Committee's members and sympathisers, which led to Tverdokhlebov's resignation.