Koch Says Fewer Jews Have Been Permitted to Leave Soviet Union Than Reported

A New York Congressman who just returned from a visit to Russia reported today that only 750 Jews have been permitted to leave the Soviet Union during the past three months. Rep. Edward I. Koch, Democrat-Liberal, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that the figure of 750 was given to him by a U.S. Embassy official in Moscow last week. He agreed that it was much less than the figures contained in recent reports from other sources which indicated that more Jews have emigrated from Russia since the beginning of 1971 than in all of 1970 when 1,000 left. But the Congressman pointed out that the U.S. Embassy could only give an estimate because no official figures are available. Koch said that according to Jews, Western newsmen and other he spoke to while in Russia, at least 300,000 Soviet Jews or ten percent of the Jewish population, would emigrate if they could. Koch said he went to Russia at the urging of many of his constituents who are concerned over the fate of some 25-30 facing trial in Leningrad and Riga. He said that in Leningrad, no Soviet official would see him despite the intervention of the U.S. Consul there. But in Moscow he met with Andrei A. Korobov, president of Inturcolleguia, a major association of Soviet attorneys.

Koch told the JTA that when he pointed out that many Jews have been held in jail without trial beyond the nine-month limit provided by Soviet law, Korobov looked up the statute and replied. “You are right.” Koch said the Soviet attorney promised to bring up the matter with the chief Soviet prosecutor Roman A. Rudenko. Koch said he spoke to the families of two imprisoned Jews in Leningrad. He said they were “afraid” but threw “caution to the winds” by talking to him because they recognize that the Soviet authorities respond only to the pressure of world opinion. The Congressman said he has written to Secretary of State William P. Rogers asking the State Department to take more vigorous steps on behalf of the imprisoned Jews. Asked by the JTA what the U.S. could, realistically, do that it hasn’t done before, Koch replied, “make public protestations.” He said the Soviets dread being held up to scorn before world opinion and would respond more readily to public representations by the U.S. than to private diplomatic approaches. In this case, he said, the U.S. could point out that the Soviets were violating their own laws by holding Jews without trial.