Forty Jurists and lawyers, including three former presidents of the American Bar Association and the deans of 17 law schools, have appealed to the Soviet government’s three top leaders to grant amnesty to an estimated 40 Soviet Jews now confined in prisons and “other institutions.” The appeal was cabled to Moscow last Saturday but was not revealed publicly until today-when former Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg, one of the signers, announced it at a press conference and made the text and the list of prisoners available.
Appearing at the Mayflower Hotel on behalf of the signers, in addition to Goldberg, were John Carey, a New York lawyer who is director of the United States Institute of Human Rights, and Adrian Fisher, Dean of Georgetown University Law School and a former State Department official.
Both in the cable and in his response to questions, Goldberg said that the appeal was based on humanitarian grounds and was not motivated by “hostility” to the Soviet Union. The cable was addressed to Nikolai V. Podgorny, chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, Aleksei N. Kosygin chairman of the Council of Ministers and Leonid I. Brezhnev, First Secretary of the Communist Party.
APPEAL DOES NOT EXCLUDE NON-JEWS
Noting that the signers are “of various racial origins and religious persuasions.” the cable said that the appeal was being made “on the occasion” of the Soviet Union’s 50th anniversary. “We are encouraged.” it said, that the Soviet Presidium had granted “partial amnesty” in connection with the anniversary for Soviet citizens but “regrettably this amnesty does not extend to activists such as these Soviet Jews.” The cable continued, “All of us are dedicated to peace, wish to lessen international tensions, and support the growing detente between the Soviet Union and the United States.”
Asked by a newsman about dissidents in the Soviet Union other than Jews who may-need-assistance, Goldberg replied that “Our appeal does not exclude them. We are concerned with all political oppression wherever it exists, in the Soviet Union or even in our own country,” The Soviet Jews have a “special problem” he continued, which “grows out of a simple desire to emigrate to Israel” or, in the cases of “a few” who wish to live in the Soviet Union in accord with Jewish culture and religious heritage.
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