Litvinov Says He Chose U.S. Rather Than Israel Because He Can Retain His Identity Here As Russian

Pavel Litvinov, the Soviet Jewish dissident who arrived in the United States last night, said today that he plans to continue to act for the defense of human rights in the Soviet Union while living here and hopefully teaching physics, Speaking at a press conference sponsored by the Khronika Press, described as a non-profit publishing house concerned with human rights in the USSR, Litvinov, the grandson of Maxim M. Litvinov, Soviet Foreign Minister under Stalin, said that he chose to live in the U.S. because it is a country of immigrants and here he could best identify himself as Russian.

Asked if he considered emigrating to Israel, Litvinov said: “It is a little difficult to answer. I am Jewish. But I was raised up on Russian culture and I think myself as a Russian.” Litvinov, who spoke Russian during the one-hour press conference, admitted, however, that in his application to leave the USSR he said he wanted to immigrate to Israel. “It was a pretext to come here,” he explained. His immigration to the U.S. was sponsored by United Hias Service.

Litvinov said that one can never tell how decisions are made in the higher ranks of Soviet authority but he opined that the Russian authorities fear a mass emigration. That is the reason, he explained, that they take “preventive measures” against persons who are symbols and known in the West. By denying them work and persecuting them, he explained, the authorities are warning others. Litvinov spoke in detail about his friend Vitaly Rubin, the Soviet sinologist and Jewish activist who, according to him, asked three years ago for permission to emigrate and as a result has been jobless for the last two years.

He said that he plans to remain and live in the U.S. even though he hopes to return some day to the USSR. Asked about the Jackson Amendment, he said he has “deep sympathy” for Sen. Henry Jackson (D.Wash.) and other Congressmen and said he does not consider this an intervention into internal affairs of the Soviet Union. Litvinov arrived last night at Kennedy Airport with his wife Maya and their 4-year-old daughter, Larissa and Dmitri, his wife’s 12-year-old son by an earlier marriage. He said he has not decided where he will eventually live and teach in the United States.