Commission of Inquiry to Take Testimony on Treatment of Soviet Jews

An appeal to the Kremlin on behalf of Soviet Jewry, signed by three top Soviet scientists and smuggled out of the Soviet Union by a United States Congressman, will be entered in evidence tomorrow to a prestigious “Commission of Inquiry,” that will hear testimony on the treatment of Soviet Jews. The Commission, which will hold an all-day hearing at the Carnegie Endowment International center, will be chaired by Dayard Rustin, executive director of the A. Philip Randolph Institute. The appeal accuses the Soviet authorities of “illegal actions in hindering the free departure of people from the Soviet Union–specifically, the free repatriation of Jews to Israel” It scores the Soviet government’s “unexplained and arbitrary refusals to grant visas” and its use of “red tape” that “has no basis in law,” and calls for pardons for Soviet Jews charged with “anti-Soviet activity,”

The three scientists–none of them Jewish–are Andrei Sakharov, nuclear physicist and head of the Soviet Committee for Human Rights, and A. Tverdokhlebov and Valery Chelidze, leading physicists and co-founders of the Committee. The appeal was smuggled out of the USSR by Rep. Bertram L. Podell, a Jewish Democrat of Brooklyn, who recently visited major Soviet cities. The Soviet scientists further declare: “Zionism is portrayed in the (Soviet) press as an anti-Communist and anti-Soviet trend, yet the concerns of Zionism are entirely national. One can only admire the persistence of an ancient and persecuted people who in very difficult conditions have resurrected a long-vanished State. It is precisely such rebirth and elimination of the tragic consequences of dispersion for the Jewish people that constitute the goal of Zionism. The charge of anti-Soviet activity against those seeking repatriation is ridiculous.”