Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger’s March 25-27 stay in Moscow is being officially described here as intended to arrange for President Nixon’s projected visit to Soviet Communist Party Secretary Leonid I. Brezhnev at the Kremlin in June for their third summit conference, but this generally is recognized as superficial. The basic purpose is to discuss the Middle East, the Jackson Amendment and the arms race between them. Only two months ago Brezhnev was personally telling Third World India’s millions of the greatness of United States leadership in the Middle East. But in the past fortnight Tass, the Soviet news agency, issued an article in Arabic encouraging the Arabs to hold tightly to their oil embargo until the U.S. capitulates to their demands against Israel; and Pravda, the Communist Party newspaper, scorned Kissinger’s disengagement process with Israel, Egypt and Syria as merely tiny results from mountainous efforts.
Nevertheless, so reluctant is Washington to anger the Kremlin that Kissinger’s own response to the Tass challenge was that he does not make foreign policy based on a radio broadcast although Tass, as always, speaks directly for the Kremlin. As for Pravda’s ridicule, Kissinger’s spokesman thought it was “not all that extraordinary.” This has been analyzed as virtually a self-indictment. Communist diplomats are saying in European capitals that Kissinger can expect difficulties and coolness from Soviet leaders because, they say, the United States has not kept its word on its Arab-Israeli program, trade and finance, and nuclear arms. This diplomatic propaganda may be Soviet fishing in European-American troubled waters but there is ample evidence to indicate that the Soviet leaders are angry with both Nixon and Kissinger.
On the Middle East, the Soviet is represented as fearing that Washington is gaining Arab support at Soviet expense and not pushing Israel fast and far enough. On nuclear arms, the Soviet indicates it dislikes the Pentagon’s record budget request although its own military buildup is deep in the over-kill zone. On trade and finance is the Jackson/Mills-Vanik proposal that blocks the Nixon-Kissinger commitments to deliver both tariff benefits and billions of dollars in credits to the Soviet Union, which, as some in Congress openly say, were promised in return for Soviet help in extricating U.S. forces from Vietnam.
Kissinger’s attempts to wean the solid Jewish organizational support away from J/M-V has been far from successful. Rabbi Israel Miller, chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and president of the American Zionist Federation, has declared “We are firmly convinced that a weakness by Americans on the Jackson-Vanik proposals would in the long run destroy the very aims” of Soviet-American detente. B’nai B’rith’s president, David Blumberg, reiterated “continuing and unequivocal” support of the Jackson Amendment and urged the Jewish community to “stand fast.”
Rabbi Arthur Hertzberg, president of the American Jewish Congress, said his group has under constant review Soviet Jewish emigration, the Middle East and all other matters of interest to the Jewish community. “Regarding the Jackson Amendment, there is no change at this time,” he said. Differing with these views is the approach of Jacob Stein, immediate past chairman of the Presidents Conference and honorary president of the United Synagogue of America, who has recommended “reformulation” of the Jackson Amendment since our goal must be to provide a climate that will permit still greater numbers of Jews to emigrate from the Soviet Union.”
Jackson himself said after he and Sen. Abraham Ribicoff met in an extraordinary breakfast session with Kissinger that there can be no change in his view until there is “a substantial increase in the number of visas for all persons wishing to emigrate–Jews and gentiles alike–and an end to harassment.” Ribicoff made no direct comment but it is known his view is identical with Jackson’s. Rep. Charles Vanik told JTA: “Our sincere hope is that the Secretary of State will carry to Moscow the forceful message that is represented by the vote in the Congress.” He was referring to the 4-1 margin by which the House inserted in the Trade Reform Act the ban on trade benefits and credits to the Soviet Union until it changes its emigration policies. In the Senate no one yet has indicated defection among the 78 Senators who have sponsored J/M-V. Congressional sources say that Kissinger has been bluntly informed that “Jackson has the votes.” Presumably Kissinger conveyed this to Soviet Ambassador Anatoly F. Dobrynin late yesterday when he “suddenly” saw Kissinger after the Secretary and Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban had met for the third time in five days over the weekend.
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.
