American Jewish Committee Requests Action Against Mccarran Act

Both major Presidential candidates and political parties were urged here today in a unanimous resolution by the executive committee of the American Jewish Committee, at its semi-annual meeting, “to translate into appropriate action their announced determination to eliminate the unfair provisions of the McCarran-Walter Immigration Act.”

The more than 100 leaders attending the meeting also adopted a resolution calling the “urgent attention” of Allied control officials and West German governmental authorities to the “continued activities in Germany of organized extreme rightists and pro-Nazi groups among displaced persons from Iron Curtain countries, particularly Hungary and Rumania.” The presence of these elements “requires utmost scrutiny and vigilance,” the resolution stated.

In a report last night, Jacob Blaustein, president of the American Jewish Committee, said that the fundamental security of Jews in Europe is currently threatened by the rising strength of groups on both the extreme left and the extreme right.

In Eastern Europe, Mr. Blaustein reported, the overwhelming majority of the 400,000 Jews “held captive” in the Soviet satellite states are in a “precarious position,” economically and politically, and desperately want to emigrate. Their possibilities for emigration, however, are now worse than at any time since the end of the war, he asserted.

The elements which had cooperated with the French Vichy regime, the neo-Nazis in Germany and the neo-Fascists of Italy have gained strength and influence on the Continent, Mr. Blaustein stated. “A gradual but definite shift to the excessive political and economic right in Western Europe has provided the climate which has made it possible for the more radical and extremist groups to make significant gains in Western Europe.”