A strongly worded cable urging immediate action to confirm the citizenship of Leonid Rigerman and his mother, Esta, has been sent to Secretary of State William P. Rogers by Rigerman’s volunteer counsel, New York Deputy Commissioner of Ports and Terminals Daniel Greer. Rigerman, whose latest attempt to enter the United States Embassy in Moscow to assert American citizenship was blocked by Soviet police on December 10, Human Rights Day, was interrogated for more than four hours and threatened with serious consequences if he tried again, according to reports from the Soviet capital. Greer, who volunteered his services to Rigerman when he met him in Moscow last summer, stated in his cable: “Any further delay in confirming his citizenship, especially in the light of the Lithuanian seaman incident and President Nixon’s response to it, would put the Rigermans in serious jeopardy as well as serve notice of American apathy to the Soviet authorities.” Many experts on Soviet-Jewish affairs consider this statement to be the most vigorously worded message to a high-ranking State Department official.
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.
