French Nobel Prize Winners Urge Soviets to Reconsider Sentences, Permit Emigration

Six French Nobel Prize winners called on the Soviet government today to reconsider the harsh Leningrad sentences and to permit the emigration from Russia of all who wish to leave, "especially those who have been sentenced" in Leningrad. The joint communique, signed by the six Nobel Laureates, some of whom have been associated in the past with pro-Soviet groups, deplored the conditions of secrecy under which the Leningrad trial was conducted and urged the Soviet government to respect the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Man. The signatories of the appeal are Francois Jacob (medicine, 1965); Alfred Kastler (Physics, 1966); Alfred Lwoff (medicine, 1965); Alfred Monod (medicine, 1965); Louis Neel (Physics, 1970) and Rene Cassin (peace, 1968). They recalled that the Leningrad defendants had, prior to their arrest, asked to be allowed to emigrate to Israel and were put under close police surveillance. This, they said, raised the possibility that they may have been the victims of "a police provocation," a possibility that cannot be ruled out because Soviet Jews have been sentenced for similar "crimes" in the past, though they were rehabilitated after the 20th Soviet Communist Party Congress.

Public protests against the sentences continued here. The Communist-dominated Confederation Generale du Travail, the country’s largest trade union, released a statement describing the "deep emotion felt by France’s working classes at hearing the Leningrad verdicts" and urged Soviet authorities to commute the death sentences. The Communist Party newspaper L’Humanite reported today that the party was taking "concrete steps" to gain a reprieve for the Leningrad accused. The French Communist Party marked its 50th anniversary yesterday and reportedly discussed the Leningrad trial at length. It empowered its secretary general, Georges Marchais, to take all necessary steps to gain clemency for the condemned men in Leningrad. A growing number of professional groups, church associations and political factions ranging from the Maoist Secours Rouge to the moderates, have announced their support of a protest march to be held here tomorrow night. The march will start at the Paris Town Hall and will end at the memorial to the unknown Jewish martyrs. (The chairman of the Christian and Socialist trade unions in Amsterdam cabled Soviet trade union leaders today to intervene for clemency on behalf of the Leningrad defendants and to condemn the treatment of Soviet Jews.)