The Board of Governors of the National Conference on Soviet Jewry, at a special emergency session here today, announced it would seek a meeting with President Nixon “to encourage continuing diplomatic efforts on behalf of Soviet Jewry.” Nixon is to go to Moscow June 27 for his third Soviet-American summit conference at a time when Soviet Jewish emigration has been sharply cut back to its lowest point in 30 months.
“We will urge the President to carry a message of concern regarding the present regression in the status of Soviet Jews which could jeopardize the mutually desirable goal of international detente,” Stanley H. Lowell, the newly-elected chairman of the Conference, said at luncheon at the Washington Hilton Hotel.
“At a time when our government is hosting Soviet officials who are lobbying for legislation which would give them highly beneficial trade concessions and are seeking to impress upon the American people their good intentions, it is our obligation to stress facts: the situation for Soviet Jews is the worst it has been in years.” Lowell declared. “There has been no fundamental change in emigration procedures and no apparent willingness on the part of the Soviet government to relax or liberalize their basic policy toward Soviet Jews. This represents a challenge we can’t ignore.”
Two groups of high-level Soviet officials have recently visited Washington and other parts of the United States touting the possibilities of Soviet-American trade benefits.
DENOUNCES LOAN TO USSR
Lowell charged that the recent U.S. loan of $180 million to the Soviet Union, lifting the total credits to nearly $500 million from the Export-Import Bank “violates the will of the Congress and the American people as expressed by the overwhelming support of the Jackson-Mills-Vanik amendment.” The amendment, which has been adopted by the House and is pending in the Senate Finance Committee, ties U.S. trade benefits and credits to the Soviet Union to Soviet emigration practices.
“Soviet Jews are being used as hostages by a Soviet regime which hopes to intimidate Soviet Jews, force the U.S. Congress to reject pending legislation, and frighten American Jews into ceasing their activities,” Lowell said, “On all those counts the Soviet regime has miscalculated the will of the American people.”
Awards were presented to Richard Maas, founding chairman of the Conference. Sister Margaret Ellen Traxler, co-chairman of the National Inter-religious Task Force on Soviet Jewry, Clive Barnes, dance and drama critic of The New York Times, and Patricia Barnes, secretary of the Committee for Valery and Galina Panov. These were the first national awards given by the conference.
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