U.S. Senate Adopts Protest Resolution Against Soviet Persecutions

The revulsion which the United States feels at the Soviet anti-Semitic policy found expression this week-end in a resolution passed unanimously by the Senate in a roll call vote. The resolution, which does not require Presidential signature or concurrence of the House, urged President Eisenhower to take appropriate steps to protest, particularly in the U.N. General Assembly, against the Communist persecutions.

The resolution, originally aimed at condemning the current Soviet campaign against Jews, was broadened to condemn Communist persecution of other minority groups. This was done at the suggestion of the State Department, which did not wish Russia to label it a pro-Israel document and circulate it as propaganda among the Arab countries. The text of the resolution reads:

“Resolved, that it is the sense of the Senate of the United States that the vicious and inhuman campaigns conducted by the Soviet Government and its puppet governments in satellite states in Europe and Asia against minority groups, such as the persecution of Creek-Orthodox congregations, the imprisonment of Roman Catholic prelates, the harassment of Protestant denominations, the suppression of Moslem communities, the persecution and scattering of ethnic groups in Poland, In the Ukraine, in the Baltic and Balkan states and in many other areas under Soviet domination, and most recently the increasing persecution of the people of the Jewish faith deserve the strongest condemnation by all peoples who believe that spiritual values are the bases of human progress and freedom.

“Resolved further, that the President of the United States is hereby urged to take appropriate steps to protest particularly in the General Assembly of the United Nations, against these outrages in order that the United Nations shall take such action in opposition to them as may be suitable under its Charter.”

Sen. Alexander Wiley, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who brought the resolution to the Senate floor after it had been unanimously approved by his committee, referred to the Prague trials, the Moscow attack on Jewish doctors and the events culminating in the Soviet rapture of diplomatic relations with Israel. The Soviet attack on the Jews, he said, was part of a policy of persecution of all minorities. These persecutions, he charged, were aimed at all peoples who stood for human rights.

“No religion is safe when one is in danger,” he declared. “A despotism that will attack one group today will attack another group tomorrow.” He described the Soviet campaign against minorities as “genocide.” In discussing the Soviet-Israel break, Sen. Wiley said it was not beyond belief that the bombing of the Soviet Legation in Tel Aviv–the immediate pretext for the Soviet break–was the work of Communists. Other Senators who spoke in favor of the resolution were Saltonstall, Smathers, Murray, Holland and Ives.