[en] The 8--432 keV spectrum of the Perseus cluster of galaxies was observed during 1972 and 1973 by the UCSD scintillation telescope on OSO7. In addition to the thermal bremsstrahlung spectrum observed at lower energies, a hard component extends to beyond 200 keV. Using kT = 6.6 keV for the thermal component as determined by lower-energy observations, the overall spectrum is well fitted by addition of a power law with number spectral index G = 1.25 +- 0.33. Comparison of our results with 1974 balloon upper limits and 1978 HEAO 1 observations shows that the nonthermal source is variable on time scales of years. It most likely originates in the compact nucleus previously observed NGC 1275, the radio Seyfert galaxy that dominates the cluster. Since the observed compact synchrotron radio source must necessarily produce secondary hard X-rays by the synchrotron self-Compton (SSC) process, we have used contemporaneous radio spectral Very Long Base-line Interferometry (VLBI) data to compute the X-ray flux. We find agreement between predicted and observed spectral indices, but predict a flux 4 times too high, presumably because of the simplified analysis required by the available radio data. In any case, much of the hard X-ray flux must originate by the SSC process. Variations in the radio size and spectral characteristics of the source from 1972 to 1978 are accurately reflected in the observed X-ray variations, adding further confidence to the SSC model