A 15-man delegation of French Socialists, led by Guy Mollet, former Prime Minister of France, is in Moscow now discussing the situation of Soviet Jews with senior USSR authorities, and is expected to take up that issue with Prime Minister Nikita S. Khrushchev next Saturday.
M. Mollet, it was reported here, studied the situation of Russian Jewry carefully prior to departing for Moscow, going over many documented reports on the issue, especially one presented last month to the participants of the 1960 Paris Conference on Soviet Jewry by Dr. Nahum Goldmann, president of the World Jewish Congress.
It is believed here that M. Mollet’s delegation is the most likely–compared with other previous delegations–of achieving some concrete results regarding the status of Soviet Jewry. The reason given is that both the Kremlin and the French Communist Party are anxious to achieve unification of leftist forces in France as a united Socialist opposition to President Charles de Gaulle.
Among the members of the delegation led by M. Mollet are Christian Pinneau, who was Foreign Minister here in 1956-57, during Israel’s Sinai campaign; Gaston Deferre, a close friend of Israel, who has been mentioned increasingly of late as the Opposition’s candidate in this country’s next Presidential elections; and Albert Gazier, a former Cabinet member, who has visited Israel and takes keen interest in Israel and in Jewish affairs generally.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
