A group of Moscow Jews said today that they were “perplexed, angered and bitter” over a report yesterday in the London Observer that Soviet authorities had agreed to ease visa application procedures for Jews seeking to emigrate to Israel. Richard Maass, chairman of the American Jewish Conference on Soviet Jewry told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that the report was “completely untrue” according to Jewish sources in Moscow with whom he spoke by telephone today. The Observer story said Soviet authorities had agreed to speed the processing of visa applications and to remove them from the purview of the KGB, the Soviet secret police.
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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.