A full page advertisement signed by more than 2000 American academicians, appealing to President Nixon to intercede for Soviet Jews in his Moscow talks, will be published in tomorrow’s edition of The New York Times, it was announced today by the Academic Committee on Soviet Jewry which sponsored the ad. “Mr. President, Soviet Jewry–whose renewed strength has been not in numbers, weapons or organizations, but in exalted spirit–stands today at the crossroads,” the public statement by the Academic Committee declares.
“At this moment,” it adds, “you have a unique opportunity to play an historic role of moral leadership. Your intercession could well prove decisive.” Among the signers, who come from a variety of academic disciplines and faculties at 140 universities and who otherwise represent a wide spectrum of political, economic and social views, are Nobel Laureates Dr. Julius Axelrod of the National Institute of Health and Dr. Paul Samuelson of M.I.T.
The Academic Committee on Soviet Jewry is headed by Dr. Hans J. Morgenthau, the political scientist and has been active since 1969 in mobilizing support among intellectuals and college educators in behalf of Soviet Jews. In their published appeal tomorrow the academicians are asking the President to urge Soviet leaders to adopt “a simple course of action” that would include the release of some 40 “Jewish prisoners of conscience,” freedom to immigrate to Israel “with dignity rather than in the atmosphere of harassment that currently prevails,” and the restoration of Jewish institutions and cultural rights in the Soviet Union.
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