Ten American Catholic, Protestant, Black and Jewish leaders have charged the Soviet government with blocking their nine-day tour of the Soviet Union which was to have begun today. Rep. Robert F. Drinan (D. Mass.) said that In tourist, the Soviet Union’s official travel agency, had confirmed the group’s hotel reservations Jan. 24 but cancelled them on Feb, 2. The trip’s purpose was “To express the friendship and solidarity of the churches of the United States for the three million Jews” in the Soviet Union, Drinan said.
He asserted that the group will continue trying to make the trip. He said the “retraction” of the visas by the Soviet government cannot be “explained except by the fear which the Kremlin has that the world may discover that, after denying fundamental religious freedom to the Jewish people over many years and decades, now, by requiring exorbitant exit fees the Soviet government is telling Soviet Jews that they may neither practice their religion nor migrate to Israel.”
In addition to Drinan, those who had planned to make the trip included Rev. Edward H. Flannery, executive secretary of the Secretariat for Catholic-Jewish Relations of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops Mrs. Ursula Neibuhr, widow of Reinhold Nieburg; and Rabbi March. Tanenbaum. director of interreligious affairs of the American Jewish Committee. Rabbi Tanenbaum said that many in the delegation are in the forefront for a detente in Soviet-American relations.
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