A State Department official’s account before a House subcommittee today of the assurances President Nixon reportedly received from Soviet leaders regarding Jewish emigration was strongly disputed by a Jewish spokesman who testified before the same subcommittee.
Walter Stoessel, Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs told the Subcommittee on Europe of the House Foreign Affairs Committee that “The President has received firm assurances that the present Soviet emigration policy which has permitted the current level of emigration will be continued indefinitely.”
Jerry Goodman, executive director of the National Conference on Soviet Jewry, claimed that Stoessel was “100 percent wrong…absolutely incorrect.” Goodman told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency after the hearings adjourned that no such assurances were contained in the memoranda read to 15 American Jewish leaders at a meeting with President Nixon in the White House April 19. Goodman, who attended the meeting, said the memoranda from unidentified Russian leaders, referred only to suspension of the Soviet education tax on emigrants.
He noted that the White House press secretary, Ronald Ziegler had made no reference to assurances regarding the rate of emigration when he briefed the press after Nixon’s meeting with Jewish leaders. Nor did Sen. Hugh Scott, the Republican Minority Leader, refer to such assurances after Senate and House members met with Nixon and were read the same memoranda, Goodman said.
Stoessel told the JTA that the assurances he referred to were mentioned by Secretary of State William P. Rogers in testimony yesterday before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. But he couldn’t say where Rogers learned of them.
SITUATION OF SOVIET JEWS WORSENING
In addition to Goodman, Dr. Hans Morgenthau a political scientist of City University, New York and Albert Arent, of the National Community Relations Advisory Council, testified today before the House subcommittee. All said that the situation of Jews in the USSR was worsening.
They responded to questions by subcommittee chairman, Rep. Benjamin S. Rosenthal (D.NY), and Rep. Peter H.B. Frelinghuisen (R.NJ). Dr. Morgenthau stated flatly that the “basic policy of the Soviet Union was not changed at all by the assurances President Nixon received” from the Soviet leadership.
Dr. Morgenthau described the education tax. on emigrants which has reportedly been suspended as “a particular tactic to prevent or at least control the emigration of Soviet Jews.” He said “Its cessation has not materially affected the fate or the condition of Soviet Jews. Instead of being prevented by taxes from leaving they are now prevented by other measures more burdensome.”
Goodman said “it is not the education tax but the arbitrariness of Soviet policy” that makes it important to enact into law the Jackson and Mills-Vanik amendments to the U.S.-Soviet Trade Act. He noted that the number of Jews whose visa applications have been rejected is increasing and in some areas where applications were formerly allowed they are now refused.
Arent, Goodman and Dr. Morgenthau each pointed out that while Jews are permitted to leave in “fairly respectable” numbers, visas are being denied to Jewish activists and that there are 42 Jewish prisoners of conscience in Soviet jails. Dr. Morgenthau referred to the cases of Benjamin Levich, a scientist, and Valery Panov, a ballet dancer, whose careers he said were “ruined” by the refusal to allow them to emigrate.
NOT ALL PROBLEMS RESOLVED
The witnesses were subjected to sharp questioning by Frelinghuisen. At one point he asked what right the U.S. had to interfere in the internal affairs of the Soviet Union. Replying, Dr. Morgenthau said: “This is an assumption I do not accept. Freedom and lack of freedom of emigration affects more than one country–the country of departure and the country of destination. The U.S. has an interest as a possible recipient of these emigrants.”
Stoessel said in his testimony that “The President recognizes, as we all do, that all of the problems have not been resolved.” He noted that the Soviets have permitted some 60,000 Jews to leave over the last four years and said it “seems reasonable to speculate that as long as there is a Soviet desire to see U.S.-Soviet relations improved, the Soviet leadership will see to its own best interests to pursue an emigration policy that will not arouse public and Congressional hostility in this country.”
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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.
