Brezhnev-nixon Summit: Statement on Mideast Expected but No Official Reference to Jewish Emigration

A statement on the Middle East conflict may be contained in the joint communique to be released at the Western White House in San Clemente, California tomorrow by President Nixon and Soviet Communist Party Secretary Leonid I. Brezhnev, observers here said tonight. It is not expected to contain any direct references to the issue of free emigration from the Soviet Union.

According to an authoritative government source, the problems of the Middle East were discussed at some length during the San Clemente phase of the summit meeting.

The emigration issue was “referred to” during the earlier phases in Washington and Camp David, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency learned from this source. The source indicated that, like the Arab-Israeli conflict and the Persian Gulf area problem, it would receive more consideration during the concluding talks at San Clemente today.

NUCLEAR PREVENTION TREATY APPLIES TO MIDEAST

Presidential advisor Henry Kissinger said at a news conference here Friday that the Soviet-American agreement on the prevention of nuclear war which the two superpowers have signed, has applications to the Middle East and Southeast Asia.

According to Kissinger, it will “reduce the dangers of war in either area” which are “demonstrably areas of international tension.”

According to the agreement the U.S. and the USSR will “act in such a manner as to prevent the developing of situations capable of causing a dangerous exacerbation of their relations, as to avoid military confrontations, and as to exclude the outbreak of nuclear war between either of the parties and other countries.”

Kissinger pointed out that while the agreement is bilateral, “the obligations are multilateral.” He noted that the agreement is of unlimited duration and does not “affect or impair” the right of individual or collective self defense as envisaged by the United Nations Charter or obligations undertaken by either superpower toward its allies or other countries “in treaties, agreements and other appropriate documents.”

Earlier last week. Sen. Jacob K. Javits (RNY) maintained that there has been no wavering of support for the Jackson Amendment in the U.S. Senate as a result of Brezhnev’s presentation on the issue.

In his statement to the Congressmen, Brezhnev said that more than 95 percent of Soviet Jews who applied for visas got them.

His figures were challenged by Sen. Jackson and others who said they were “wrong and misleading.”

(In New York, Jacob Stein, chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, expressed regret last night that no announcement giving Soviet Jews the right to emigrate freely had yet emerged from the Nixon-Brezhnev summit talks now nearing completion.