A Victory for Freedom

Political leaders and Soviet Jewry activists here have jubilantly chalked up a victory with the release of Soviet Jewish dissident Anatoly Shcharansky after a relentless nine-year struggle that had seemed often to be heading nowhere.

From every part of Washington — the White House, Capitol Hill and the offices of major Jewish and Soviet Jewry organizations — there were expressions of guarded hope that the Soviet move was a sign of more to come.

At a nationally televised news conference Tuesday night, President Reagan said he was encouraged by Shcharansky’s release, although he could not be certain whether Moscow’s move was merely a propaganda act or a precourser of a substantive change of policy on human rights and emigration.

STATEMENT BY REAGAN

“I don’t have any way to determine what their motives are in doing this,” the President said. “I know only that since the Geneva meeting (in November) there has been not only this but others released, more so than in a great many years.”

Reagan apparently was referring to the granting of exit visas for a number of Russians with spouses in the West as well as to the Soviet government’s recent agreement to permit some 25 long-standing refuseniks to emigrate. The refuseniks had appeared on a list submitted to the Soviets by Sen. Edward Kennedy (D. Mass.), who was told of Moscow’s decision on a visit there last week.

“I’m encouraged by this because I did talk at great length about the matter of human rights with the General Secretary (Mikhail Gorbachev) and all we can do is hope that this is a beginning, a sign of what is going to continue to take place, ” the President said.

Reagan added that he had “no way of judging” the Soviet claims that certain Russians seeking to emigrate, such as the celebrated dissident Andrei Sakharov, possessed state secrets — a claim on which the Soviets often base their rejection of emigration requests. But Reagan stressed that the Soviet authorities have “made a start” and that he hoped “it is just a start and that they’ll continue.”

AVOIDING UNQUALIFIED JOY

Meanwhile, many here involved with Soviet Jewry and particularly with Shcharansky’s case, appeared to be taking pains to avoid an appearance of unqualified joy over Shcharansky’s release. They are clearly concerned about the possibility of effectively allowing Moscow far greater public relations mileage than they feel it deserved on the basis of this one move.

“Today marks the beginning of our renewed struggle on behalf of the other Prisoners of Conscience,” said Alan Dershowitz, a professor of law at Harvard University, who has worked on Shcharansky’s behalf. In a statement distributed by the Union of Councils for Soviet Jews (UCSJ), Dershowitz said, “We must take no more than one moment to celebrate and then get back to the struggle.”

One figure who was intimately involved with the prisoner exchange plan, Rep. Benjamin Gilman (R. NY), expressed hope in a statement issued Tuesday that “just as Anatoly Shcharansky had become a symbol for freedom-seeking people everywhere, ” the Soviet decision to release him “will become a signal of a new era in the attitude of the Soviets toward human rights and toward freedom and justice.” Rep. Tom Lantos (D. Calif.), in another statement released Tuesday, cautioned that “without a dramatic improvement in the human rights of millions of Soviet citizens, Anatoly Shcharansky’s release after nine years of cruel and unjust imprisonment will be simply a footnote to a deplorable record of human rights abuse.”

‘VICTORY HAS MANY FATHERS’

Father Robert Drinan, a former Massachusetts Congressman who had headed the International Committee for the Release of Anatoly Shcharansky, said at the UCSJ press conference that the Soviets “have now recognized, in part at least, the Heisinki (accords) commitment (to human rights).”

But, he added, “I think of all the refuseniks who are still there.” Asked where he thought the credit for Shcharansky’s release was due, Drinan said the “victory has many fathers and everybody is a father today.”

Katy Lowry, wife of Rep. Bill Lowry (R. Calif.) and a member of the Congressional Spouses Committee of 21, a Soviet Jewry group, observed that “with the incredible commitment of other equally dedicated groups, something began to wear away at the intransigence of the Soviets. In a corner of my head,” Lowry said, “I share a tiny bit of Anatoly’s victory.”

In New York, Brooklyn District Attorney Elizabeth Holtzman, who had met Shcharansky when she visited the Soviet Union as a member of Congress, said that he was granted his freedom “because we, American Jews, refused to keep silent, because we demanded freedom for Soviet Jews, because we put pressure on the Soviet government.” She said that Jews must “continue to speak out, to keep up the pressure … to demand that Shcharansky’s release be the start of a new flood of Jewish emigration.”