Dobrynin Offered Million Dollars Congressmen Offer Cash for Release of Soviet Jews

Rep. Bertram L. Podell, the New York Democrat, proposed today to “deliver to Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin within 72 hours one million dollars for Soviet Jews presently incarcerated and harassed in the Soviet Union, in ransom in accordance with the recent price list.” This was a reference to the disclosure yesterday that the Soviet Union has increased by huge amounts the costs of exit visas for Jewish academicians seeking to emigrate.

“We are prepared to do business,” Rep. Podell said in front of the Soviet Embassy here. He and four other Congressmen had asked and had been refused permission to meet with Dobrynin. They wanted to present him with the cash offer and a letter criticizing Soviet treatment of its Jewish citizens. Rep. Podell added that “we will raise any additional funds that are necessary to bring out of the Soviet Union” the Jews wishing to emigrate. He said the funds had been raised in response to the Soviet action in boosting exit fees. The other Congressmen were Peter Peyser (R. N.Y.), Edward I. Koch (D.N.Y.), Jonathan Bingham (D. N.Y.) and John G. Dow (D. N.Y.).

The five Congressmen had gathered, with other demonstrators, across the street from the Soviet Embassy. They had a letter addressed to Soviet Communist Party chief Leonid Brezhnev, urging him to “take action to stop this harassment and allow these people and their families to leave the Soviet Union in peace.” Such action, the letter said, would remove a “barrier to better relations between our two countries.” The letter listed 15 cases of harassment of Soviet Jews, Podell said. Previously, Rep. Edwin B. Forsythe (R. N.J.) and Rep. Lawrence Coughlin (R. Pa.) had urged President Nixon to investigate the reports of the higher exit fees and to “express American concern about such practices of intimidation and oppression.”