The Soviet Union, through its embassy in Washington, today made known that a strong protest has been made to the United States Government against “attempts to interfere in the domestic affairs of the USSR” by State Department endorsement of Sen. Ribicoff’s resolution condemning Soviet anti-Semitism. The protest was made orally at the State Department by Alexander I. Zinchuk, Counselor of the Russian embassy. He called on Richard H. Davis, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs.
Mr. Zinchuk indicated to Mr. Davis that the Soviet Government resented what it considered unfounded allegations involving the Jewish situation in Russia and felt that the State Department violated diplomatic protocol by seeking to intervene in domestic Russian issues pertaining to Soviet citizens. He contended that the State Department had no more right to urge passage of a resolution telling Russia what cultural facilities to provide to Jews than the Soviet Foreign Ministry would have in intervening directly in the American Negro question in Alabama.
The State Department two weeks ago maintained that it had changed its position on the Ribicoff resolution from one of opposition to support. At that time the Department said the time was now regarded as more opportune. Senate sources, however, later commented that last year the Department intervened to kill the resolution at a time when Soviet-American relations were better and Moscow was more responsive to American public opinion. Today, they said, American-Soviet relations have deteriorated to the point that the Department does not care if the Kremlin is offended.
(From Moscow it was reported today that a book of Yiddish poetry entitled “Horizonten” has been put on sale in the Soviet capital in the Kirov Street Bookshop. The book was published in 5,000 copies at a price of 94 kopecs. ($1). It includes poems written by 50 authors and has 528 pages. The Jewish population was reported to have been queuing up for hours to get copies of this long-expected book. The publication was announced over six months ago in the Communist press in the West.)
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
