Activists Released After Nixon Summit Visit Told by Kgb to Keep Quiet or Face Re-arrests

Most of the Jewish activists arrested in Moscow on the eve of President Nixon’s visit in order to keep them out of circulation, have been released “to the best of my knowledge,” Boris Kagan, a 32-year-old Jewish lawyer from Moscow said here today. Kagan arrived with a planeload of Jewish emigres from the USSR this morning. He said that he was detained on the eve of Nixon’s arrival May 28 and was warned by the KGB (secret police) not to engage in “anti-Soviet” activity. Kagan said the KGB interrogators told him that he would get his exit visa if he made no trouble. He said that was the first hint he had that his visa application was approved and a week later he received his long sought permission to leave the Soviet Union.

(The nine Jewish activists released in Moscow were warned they would be arrested again if they continued to make trouble, the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry in New York learned from Jewish sources in the Soviet Union today. According to the sources the activists were told by the KGB, “For people like you there is no need for the Constitution. We have put you in prison and will again if you continue your activities. The next time it will be for more than ten days.”)

(The SSSJ also reported information on two Jewish activists drafted into the Soviet Army on the eve of the Nixon visit. One of them, Michael Kliachkin, has been assigned to a road construction gang and another, Victor Yachot, has been given duties at a military school. The SSSJ said Russian Jews fear that the political prisoners in the Potma labor camp may be moved to Krasnoyarsk in eastern Siberia. A Jew traveling in the area recently saw new barracks under construction and was told they were for political prisoners from Potma, the SSSJ reported.)