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Moscow Activist Says Offered Exit if Stops Criticizing Regime

June 13, 1974
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Michael Agursky, a Moscow Jewish activist with a doctorate in mathematics, has disclosed in a letter to the Washington Committee for Soviet Jewry that if he stopped criticizing the Soviet Government he would be allowed to emigrate. In the letter, received here June 10, Agursky said he was told on May 25, when he was interrogated six hours without a stop by a KGB official in a police station, that he could emigrate because his former secret job was a “trifle.”

Previously he said he had been told he was a “dangerous person” because “of my profound knowledge of the Soviet Union and because of the great quantity of my acquaintances.” Agursky has sent letters and articles to the Western media. Agursky, who has been out of work since he applied to emigrate to Israel two years ago, said that he would stop his criticism only when Soviet foreign policy changes and that he then would try to promote Soviet-Israeli friendship.

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