A top-ranking official of the State Department today expressed the United States Government’s “disquiet about the situation of the Jewish community in the Soviet Union, and expressed the hope that the leaders of the USSR “will seek to correct” that situation.
The statement, detailing some of the anti-Jewish persecutions practiced by the USSR, was made by Richard N. Gardner, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for International Organizations. He was one of the speakers at an all-day conference dedicated to the celebration of the 15th anniversary of the United Nations adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, conducted here today by the American section of the World Jewish Congress.
Disclosing that the U.S.A. has embarked on a “new policy of considering United Nations human rights conventions on their merits,” and asserting that the late President Kennedy had recently initiated action to secure Senate ratification of some of the United Nations conventions dealing with human rights, Mr. Gardner noted that the USSR has “sought to assert its leadership in human rights issues before the United Nations.”
“There is a certain irony in this effort,” he declared, “for the Soviet Union has adopted a government policy of widespread disregard for those fundamental rights which are embodied in the United Nations Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.”
“In this gathering,” he stated, “it is fitting to make some reference to the specific disabilities, religious and cultural, of the Jewish community in the Soviet Union. These are a matter of anxious interest, not only to other Jewish communities but to all who seek to build a better world on the basis of the principles embodied in the Universal Declaration.”
“Our disquiet about the situation of the Jewish community in the Soviet Union,” he declared, “is not the result of any diplomatic conflict or the so-called cold war. We are equally opposed to any kind of discrimination, and have made that repeatedly clear, in any other country, irrespective of its social or political structure. Our disquiet flows from the deep conviction, which is as old as our Declaration of Independence, that human rights are inalienable, and that the business of government is to recognize and protect them.”
Others who participated in the conference conducted by the WJC were John P. Humphrey, director of the United Nations Human Rights Division; Michael S. Comay, Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations; Rabbi Joachim Prinz, president of the American Jewish Congress; and Dr. Maurice L. Perlzweig, the World Jewish Congress permanent representative at the United Nations.
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