Soviet Government to Be Petitioned by 1,000,000 on Jewish Rights

Petitions bearing an estimated one million signatures, seeking fair treatment of Soviet Jewry, will be submitted to the Soviet Embassy here Sunday, at the conclusion of ceremonies opening the five-day "Eternal Light Vigil."

The petitions are addressed to Soviet authorities and urge restoration of religious and cultural freedom to Soviet Jews. They are being brought to Washington by delegations from more than 100 communities in the United States to attend the huge open air rally to be held Sunday in Lafayette Park, across the street from the White House.

The steering committee of the American Jewish Conference on Soviet Jewry, sponsors of the Vigil, will seek to tender the petition to Soviet diplomatic officials here.

An appeal signed by 315 leading Americans of different racial and religious backgrounds will appear in advertisements in Washington daily newspapers tomorrow, urging the Soviet Union to grant Jews full communal rights.

Three Nobel Prize winners are among the signatories. They are Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Dr. Linus Pauling and Dr. Hermann J. Muller, Other signatories include leading university professors, Christian clergymen, members of Congress, including Sen. Robert F. Kennedy of New York; Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas; Roy Wilkins, executive director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People; poet Archibald MacLeish; Eric Sevareid, television commentator; and many other personalities from the arts, literature, labor and other areas of public life.

The advertisement calls on the Soviet Union to permit and encourage Jewish religious, cultural, and educational institutions, to allow freedom of association and travel outside Soviet boundaries, to conduct an effective campaign against anti-Semitism, and to end the anti-Jewish tone of the so-called "economic trials."