Davies’ Statement Placed in Context

The State Department sought today to put into proper context a statement on Soviet Jews by Richard T. Davies, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs. Davies told the House subcommittee on Europe that “claims that Soviet Jews as a community are living in a state of terror seem to be over-drawn.” Department spokesman Charles Bray read large portions of Davies’ 21-page statement to newsmen in which he referred at length to the plight of Soviet Jews, their inadequate religious facilities and exclusion from careers.

Bray said Davies’ remarks had to be evaluated in the context of his full statement. “It is not true nor fair to say that Mr. Davies is taking a light-hearted view of the Jews in the Soviet Union,” Bray said, “For a long period we have made frequent expressions of the plight of Soviet Jews. We have paid serious attention to the situation.”

Asked for the source of claims about Soviet Jews that Davies said were “overdrawn,” Bray said they came by letter, phone calls and statements to officials and by speaking and consulting with various groups in American society.

However, the State Department spokesman said he would not “get into an extensive cataloguing of the groups and individuals who represent the antecedents of Mr. Davies’ statement.” He added, however, “I am not referring, obviously, to the many responsible organizations of the Jewish community in this country which do clearly have and which do obviously have a clear understanding of the situation in the Soviet Union.”

There will be no Daily News Bulletin on Thursday, Nov. 25 due to the Thanksgiving holiday.