The National Conference on Soviet Jewry accused a high ranking Soviet official of “playing a dangerous numbers game” when he claimed in Washington this week that most Jews seeking to leave the Soviet Union receive visas. The NCSJ referred to remarks by Vladimir S. Alkhimov, the Soviet Deputy Minister of Trade, who heads a 15-member Soviet trade delegation currently visiting the United States. Alkhimov spoke of “dramatic changes affecting the emigration of Soviet Jews.”
The NCSJ said his statement reflected no new developments. “In truth, there are over 100,000 pending affidavits for Soviet Jews which have not been acted upon by Soviet officials,” the NCSJ said. “Despite the welcome increase in emigration in 1972, this only represented one-fourth of those Jews known to have such affidavits.”
Soviet officials are playing a “dangerous numbers game,” the statement continued, when they say that over 95 percent of all applications last year have been settled” The truth is that 95 percent of those finally permitted to leave, after much harassment, actually left the USSR. Hundreds of Jewish families have been waiting, in vain, for years. Most of them are under constant surveillance and have been unemployed for months or years.”
The NCSJ accused Alkhimov of distorting the facts when he asserted that “only ten percent (of those who left) had to pay something” In reality, the NCSJ said, “the imposition of a retroactive ransom tax last August, for those who leave the Soviet Union, has already cut down the number of educated Jews permitted to leave by more than one-half–from over 20 percent in the first part of 1972 to less than ten percent in the last six months.”
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