Kennan Assails Use of Congressional Legislation to Tackle Problem of the Emigration of Soviet Jews

George F. Kennan, former U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union and long a leading American expert on Soviet affairs, today attacked the use of congressional trade legislation to ease Soviet restrictions on emigration and specifically challenged any use of this method to help Soviet Jews in their efforts to emigrate. Kenhan made his remarks before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

While cautioning against pitfalls in Soviet-American trade relations, Kennan declared he has “no sympathy” for denying most favored nation treatment to the Soviet Union to bring about “an alteration” of Soviet policy “with respect to the emigration from Russia of its Jewish citizens.” Such legislation, he said is not a “suitable or desirable means of exercising pressure on another government.”

He also found it “difficult” to understand why the U.S. should make “exit visas to Soviet citizens of Jewish origin the touchstone of our entire commercial policy towards that country.” In this connection he questioned “why we should suddenly” now make it a “major issue” when Soviet practice, “especially with relation to Jews is greatly more liberal than it has been for decades in the past.”

TROUBLED BY FOCUS ON JEWS.

Kennan said he was “troubled by the fact that the pressures we are urged to exert appear to relate specifically to people of one single ethnic-religious background. I am sure that we do not wish to convey the impression that our concern for persons restricted in the freedom to leave their country of origin is in some way racially conditioned, and that the treatment of others than Jews in this respect would leave us indifferent.”

The Jackson Amendment to the trade bill pending in the Senate does not mention “Jew” or “Jewish” in any aspect. It specifically refers to all Soviet citizens. However, comments on the Jackson Amendment, usually refer to Jewish emigration even though Sen. Henry Jackson (D.Wash.) himself, in speeches, has pointed out the legislation bearing his name is intended to help any Soviet citizen to emigrate without harassment.

Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger, who was to have testified three weeks ago on this and other elements of Soviet-American detente, is still expected to appear before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in the near future. Jackson also is expected to testify in what is described as a “debate on detente.”