New Trial Termed Cruel, Unjust; Efforts to Be Taken for Administration to Act

Arthur J. Goldberg, declared today that the new trial of Soviet Jews constituted a “cruel and unjust policy” on the part of the Soviet Union in contravention of UN declarations it signed. Speaking at a press conference organized by the American Jewish Conference on Soviet Jewry, the former Supreme Court Justice and former U.S. ambassador to the UN, said the trial of the nine Jews is “shocking and ominous in its implications.” Rabbi Herschel Schacter, AJCSJ chairman, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that “We are requesting a meeting at the highest levels of American government” on the issue of the Leningrad trial. He said Goldberg had not, contrary to reports today, agreed to express his feelings by telephone to Soviet Prosecutor General Roman A. Rudenko in Moscow. Rabbi Schacter said Goldberg told him there would be “no point” to such a “futile exercise,” as Rudenko was not an important enough official. During his press conference, Goldberg said the new trial belied the hope that the Kremlin policy toward Soviet Jews since last December was a move toward what was “hopefully believed to be a liberating trend.” He called on the USSR to change its policy, since “where anti-Semitism exists, everyone is a victim.”