Congressman Urges Enactment of Legislation to Provide 30,000 Visas for Soviet Jews

Rep. F. Bradford Morse, Republican of Massachusetts, said today that the legislation to provide 30,000 special refugee visas for Soviet Jews was “a challenge to the Soviet Union to permit those Jews who wish to leave to do so and to show that the United States would welcome them here.” Morse noted that while “many” Soviet Jews would prefer to go to Israel, “enactment of such legislation at this critical time will remain an act of American generosity and concern in a time of need.” The 50-year-old Congressman, who this year began his second decade in the House, is a member of its Foreign Relations Committee and a co-sponsor of the visa legislation, originally introduced March 4 by Reps. Edward I. Koch, New York Democrat, and Gilbert Gude, Maryland Republican. That bill was subsequently withdrawn and amended to provide visas for ethnic or cultural associations or nationalities, thus widening the coverage of the measure. The proposed legislation has 47 co-sponsors to date.

Morse pointed out that Congress had in the past put through special legislation to aid refugees, as in the cases of Hungarians in 1956, Czechoslovakians in 1968 and Cubans since 1967. The Massachusetts Representative contended that even if the Soviets permitted Jewish emigration on a modest scale, the present American quota for Eastern Hemisphere refugees–10,200 a year–would be inadequate. He added that enactment of the visa bill might induce other nations to do likewise. Meanwhile, Senate. Minority Leader Hugh Scott has inserted into the Congressional Record the text of the resolution adopted at the recent conference on Soviet Jewry in Brussels. The Pennsylvania Republican explained that “in view of the crucial period the Jews in the Soviet Union are facing, we are anxious to highlight any positive action taken which will help to alleviate this critical situation.” The resolution, Scott said, indicates Soviet Jews’ “deep concern and their heroic struggle for the safeguarding of their national identity at this time of crisis.”