The official Soviet Communist party organ, Pravda, today defended death penalties imposed on Jews for economic crimes, and accused Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy of “malicious falsifications.”
The article in Pravda was broadcast from Moscow. It referred to a recent New York speech by the Attorney General. Mr. Kennedy charged that Soviet civil rights guarantees protecting minorities had gone “the way of a new year’s resolution.”
The Pravda article, by N. Vladimirov, said that Mr. Kennedy “sheds tears over the bitter lot of those in the Soviet Union who do not want to live by honest labor, but scheme plundering of Socialist property, embezzlement, taking of bribes, and currency speculation.”
Pravda said the real reasons behind the Kennedy remarks were that “imperialism” was “frightened” by Communism’s advances and the rise of racial minorities against oppression. The Soviet paper indicated that Mr. Kennedy, by criticizing Soviet treatment of Jews, was trying to confuse the true issue of world human rights.
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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.
