Jackson Reaffirms Justification for Linking U.S. -soviet Trade with Russian Emigration Practices

Sen, Henry M. Jackson (D. Wash.) strongly reaffirmed yesterday justification for the trade law linking U.S. trade benefits with Soviet emigration practices and said he looked to the Congress and the Administration to keep their commitments concerning the linkage, “I do not believe that the Congress will respond to the disappointing Soviet move by abandoning its commitment to help bring about the freer movement of people and ideas between east and west, and I expect the President and the Secretary of State to stand by their own commitments embodied in the October 18 compromise.” Jackson said.

In supporting the amendment that he and Rep. Charles A. Vanik (D., Ohio) had co-sponsored, “The Congress upheld the traditional American commitment to individual liberty.” Jackson said. “In negotiating the compromise of October 18 and incorporating its provisions with the original Jackson-Vanik language into the trade act, the Congress acted both in the hope that our good faith would be regarded with good faith on the Soviet side, and with the prudence of providing legislative safeguards which deny the affected economic benefits to the Soviet Union in the event of bad faith.

Jackson indicated that the $300 million calling on loans to the Soviet Union can, under existing law, be increased with Congressional approval but he cautioned that “Congress should not abdicate its responsibility to oversee the disposition of U.S. credits, particularly to the country whose policies require us to spend billions of dollars for defense.”

WILL SUPPORT EXPANDED TRADE

“Our determination in these matters, ” he added, “is all the more justified by President Ford’s January 21 statement that the Administration intends to ‘work with the Congress to eliminated any of the problems in the trade bill that might have precipitated the action by the Soviet Union.’ This unfortunate reaction suggests that we should regard an egregious Soviet breach of good faith with increased largesse and a weakening of our insistence that they move toward freer emigration.”

Jackson said he was issuing the statement “to set the record straight” because Secretary Henry Kissinger’s January 14 announcement that the Soviet Union had decided not to bring into force the 1972 trade agreement” had given rise to confusion, speculation, and misunderstanding.”

His own position, Jackson said, is that “genuine detente requires freer movement of peoples and ideas and not just of machinery and wheat. I continue to believe that the economic power of the United States should be pressed into the service of human rights, and I continue to believe that the courageous men and women fighting for their freedom in the Soviet Union are worthy of our support. I will not abandon their cause, whether under pressure from the cold-hearted in Moscow or the faint-hearted in Washington.”

Jackson said he would continue to support expanded trade with the Soviet Union despite its rejection of the trade agreement and foresaw that ordinary commercial trade might well continue to grow, “But the fact is that to the Soviets the 1972 trade agreement was designed to bring not so much of our trade, as our aid– in the form of a huge infusion of American capital at subsidized interest rates.” he said.

Detailing the history of the trade law since the Jackson-Kissinger exchange of letters Oct. 18, the Washington Democrat said that “rather than saying plainly that the Soviets have reneged, the Administration sought to blame the Congress — and then to exploit the Soviet action to inhibit the Congress from playing its constitutional role in establishing tariff and regulating credits.”