3 Jewish Leaders Say Kissinger Sympathetic to Soviet Jewry Issue

Three national Jewish leaders met yesterday for 40 minutes with Dr. Henry Kissinger to discuss the situation of Soviet Jewry. They said today that President Nixon’s national security advisor was “sympathetic to our presentation” and were “encouraged by Dr. Kissinger’s response and by his assurance that the channel of communication between the White House and the Jewish community on this issue (Soviet Jewry) will remain open.”

The three leaders were Max Fisher of Detroit, past president of the Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds, Richard Maass, chairman of the National Conference on Soviet Jewry, and Jacob Stein, chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. The meeting yesterday took place as Dr. Kissinger was preparing to leave for the Soviet Union, and less than a month after 15 Jewish leaders met with Nixon at the White House on April 19.

In their joint statement, Fisher, Maass and Stein said: “We presented to Dr. Kissinger detailed information supporting our concern over the Soviet Union’s cruel and arbitrary procedures for processing applications for emigration. We described the disabilities under which 100,000 Jews who have applied for visas live. We described the deteriorating conditions of the prisoners of Zion, the Jews arrested and harassed for seeking to emigrate. We told him of the capricious dental as ‘security risks’ of applicants for visas.”

The three Jewish leaders also said that Dr. Kissinger told them that the granting of the most favored nation status to the Soviet Union was an essential aspect of the United States policy of increasing trade and detente with the USSR.