The anti-Jewish “doctors’ plot” in Moscow was the personal invention of Stalin himself, it was charged by Capt. Nikolai E. Khoklov, Soviet secret police agent who recently fled the USSR, in an interview released here today by Radio Free Europe. Capt. Khoklov, who said he turned on his superiors when ordered to assassinate an anti-Soviet White Russian leader, is now in the United States.
Capt. Khoklov, who is not a Jew, says that anti-Semitism is increasing and that he knew of the experiences of some of his Jewish friends who could not get decent jobs in the Soviet Union, despite high educational qualifications. He said the regime in the Soviet Union was doing nothing to curb anti-Semitism, but also expressed the opinion that no drastic anti-Semitic measures were in prospect.
On the “doctors’ plot,” he said that the anti-Semitic implications, denounced by Soviet authorities after Stalin’s death, were not the sole responsibility of former Minister of State Security Ignatiev who was later blamed and demoted for the anti-Jewish fiasco. He charged that Ignatiev was merely a tool of Stalin in this affair.
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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.