Expert on Soviet Union Rejects Assertion Jackson-vanik Law Harmed Soviet Jewish Emigration

Recent assertions by former President Richard Nixon and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger that the Jackson-Vanik amendment to the Foreign Trade Act is a deterrent to detente between the U.S. and the Soviet Union and to Soviet Jewish emigration was rejected yesterday by a noted scholar on the Soviet Union.

Dr. William Korey, director of policy research for the International Council of B’nai B’rith, declared in a paper presented at the annual spring meeting here of the B’nai B’rith International Board of Governors, that contrary to that thesis, the Jackson-Vanik amendment would strengthen and legitimize detente by “holding it accountable to fundamental principles of international and human conduct” and emphasize the U.S. commitment to human rights.

He added that the amendment, which ties benefits, including most-favored-nation (MFN) trade status treatment, credits and investment guarantees to the removal of obstacles to emigration from the Soviet Union and Eastern bloc nations, had a decisive and positive effect on Soviet Jewish emigration even before the measure was enacted into law in 1975.

Nixon wrote in an article last summer that Jewish emigration from the Soviet Union jumped from 1,000 in 1968 to 35,000 in 1973. This, he said, was due to “private pressure “or “quiet diplomacy. ” He said that the Soviets want what the Western nations produce and are willing to give up something to get it. However, he emphasized “they will give up more in private than they will in public.”

The former President charged that the Jackson-Vanik amendment put the Soviets on the spot publicly by tying trade to emigration policies. Consequently, he added, Jewish emigration plummeted.

DIPLOMACY PLAYED LITTLE PART

Kissinger, meanwhile, in his memoirs, “Years of Upheaval, ” echoed Nixon’s viewpoint although the two apparently split on the theory of linkage. In his article, Nixon wrote, “The key is to make very clear to them (the USSR) that there is an iron link between their behavior and the West’s willingness to make the trade deals they hope for while not doing so in such a way that they lose face.” Kissinger rejected trade linkage to internal Soviet behavior, stating that linkage was acceptable to international conduct, not domestic behavior.

Korey, in his study, found that the early rise in Jewish emigration had little to do with diplomacy. He credits the increase to “the extraordinary courage of Soviet Jewish activists whose exodus movement, stimulated by a growing anti-Semitism, could not and would not be halted by … Soviet judicial trials and harsh sentences imposed in late 1970 and 1971” and resulting “massive outcry of world public opinion.”

Besides international public outcry for easing of emigration restrictions in the Soviet Union, Korey asserted that the Kremlin was also prodded by its desire for detente. The Soviets sought detente, Korey said, in order to defuse international tensions, stabilize the status quo in Central and Eastern Europe, and obtain extensive trade with Western industrial powers, especially the U.S. However, as long as the right to emigrate was not respected, “discussions leading to detente would inevitably be strained, ” Korey said.

Thus the doors to Jewish emigration were opened further. As the number of Jews seeking to emigrate increased three fold, the Kremlin imposed a “diploma tax, ” which required emigrants to pay an exhorbitant sum, supposedly in compensation for the cost of their education, according to Korey. It was at this time that the amendment linking trade benefits with the removal of obstacles to emigration was proposed by Sen. Henry Jackson (D. Wash.).

AMENDMENT SERVES 2 FUNCTIONS

Moreover, a Soviet delegation was told by then Sen. Edmund Muskie that “Americans properly perceive the tax on Jewish emigrants … as being in violation of fundamental human rights and freedoms. ” Korey said that Secretary of State George Shultz, then Treasury Secretary, visited Moscow and relayed the same message to former Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev.

“The impact was extraordinary, “said Korey. “Probably for the first time in Soviet history, an edict was made null and void only six months after enactment … Jackson-Vanik clearly played a decisive role in affecting Soviet Jewish emigration in a positive manner …. “

Concluding, Korey asserts that the Jackson-Vanik amendment serves two crucial functions: First, it does not obstruct the flow of immigration; rather it emphasizes and symbolizes America’s commitment to human rights. And second, it legitimizes detente by holding it accountable to fundamental principles of international and human conduct. “To do otherwise would make a mockery of the process, ” Korey declared.