Senators John Heinz (R. Pa.) and Alan Cranston (D. Calif.) informed the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that they have sent a joint letter co-signed by 42 other Senators to Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev asking that Anatoly Shcharansky be allowed to leave the Soviet Union and join his wife, Avital, in Israel. Heinz said “I am pleased that so many of our colleagues in the Senate share our concern over the health and the human rights of Mr. Shcharansky and have joined in sending a letter to Chairman Brezhnev.”
The letter to Brezhnev appealed to him “in the name of humanity and good will between our two nations” to release Shcharansky and allow him to join his wife in Israel. The Senators noted that in a recent letter to his mother, Ida Milgrom, Shcharansky indicated that he is under severe physical and mental stress.
“His sight is failing reportedly and he suffers from severe headaches,” the Senators wrote in their letter. “Mr. Shcharansky’s mother hopes to visit her son on August 2, and we fervently urge that she be allowed to do so. Mr. Shcharansky’s health has deteriorated and continued imprisonment could endanger his life. In the spirit of the Vienna summit which calls for broader cooperation between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, we respectfully urge you to release Anatoly Shcharansky….”
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.
