Secretary of State William P. Rogers today asked the House Ways and Means Committee to “permit us to handle” the Soviet emigration issue in “diplomatic channels” on the basis of assurances given President Nixon by the Soviet government. Rogers said he could not make public “the texts of confidential communications on this subject but I believe the assurances are firm.”
He told the 25-member committee that Soviet Communist Party General Secretary Leonid I. Brezhnev would be unable to make progress in the field of Soviet-American trade if the Soviet leaders believe the U.S. is discriminating against their country. Rogers made the statements while urging the Committee to approve the Nixon Administration’s request to grant most favored nation treatment for the Soviet Union within the trade reform bill which would give the President unprecedented powers in negotiations on American foreign commerce.
In a prepared statement which he read to the Committee, which is headed by Rep. Wilbur Mills (D.Ark.), Rogers said that he shared “your deep concern” about Soviet emigration practices “both officially and personally, but I believe the best hope for a satisfactory resolution of this issue will come not from the confrontation formal legislation would now bring about but from a steady improvement in our overall relations with the Soviet Union.”
“As these relations have improved in recent years,” he added, “we have witnessed a significant and favorable evolution in Soviet emigration policy. An unprecedented sixty thousand Soviet-Jews have been able to emigrate. For over a year the average monthly level has exceeded 1500. I know some of you are genuinely apprehensive over the firmness of present emigration policy, particularly in regard to the decision to waive totally collection of the education tax.”
NIXON RECEIVED ASSURANCES
Continuing, Rogers said: “However, as you already know, the President has been assured by the Soviet government that the policy on total waivers is to be continued indefinitely. He has also been assured that present Soviet emigration policy which has permitted the current level of emigration, will also be continued indefinitely.”
Rogers warned that “failure to grant MFN status would seriously jeopardize our relations with the Soviet Union. It would impede the gradual evolution of the Soviet Union into a more open member of the world community, an evolution which is the best long-term hope for all of us, including those Soviet Jews who wish to emigrate.”
Five Democratic and three Republican members of the House, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency was informed, will testify on May 29 when a second stage in the hearings begins. They are expected to testify in favor of insisting on changes in Soviet emigration policy. Four members of the National Interreligious Task Force on Soviet Jewry are to appear May 15 and representatives of the National Council of Jewish Women on May 17. Various Jewish organizations, JTA was told, are submitting statements but will not have personal witnesses testify.
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