Vadim Bogoslovsky, a Soviet member of the United Nations staff who had been widely quoted as saying that Jewish scientists in the Soviet Union are being watched as alleged security risks today denied he made any such statement to a reporter for the Yiddish-language daily, the Day-Morning Journal. The reporter said flatly that the Soviet official did make the statements.
The Soviet official said he had met the reporter in the UN delegate’s lounge and had several casual conversations during which the reporter had tried to draw him out on the situation of the Jews in the Soviet Union. He said he had replied that he was unfamiliar with the topic since he had lived outside the Soviet Union since 1956. He also said that, contrary to the account in the Morning Journal, he was not born in Odessa nor was his mother Jewish.
The reporter, Gershon Jacobson, insisted that his report was an accurate account of the conversations and that he had specified in his story that the report had not been based on an official interview but on the results of a “private talk.” He added that the Soviet official “did express the published views about the conditions of Soviet Jews during several conversations we had on the subject.”
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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.
