Jackson Raps Kissinger’s Defense of Mfn Status for the Soviet Union

Secretary of State-designate Henry A. Kissinger is dead wrong in refusing to insist that the Soviet Union lift emigration restrictions in return for U.S. trade benefits, Sen. Henry M. Jackson (D.Wash.) declared today. “He is just stuck with a stupid administration policy which they made last year.” Jackson added.

Jackson spoke at a joint news conference at the Capitol with Dr. Leonid Tarassuk, a former curator at the Hermitage Museum in Leningrad, who recently emigrated to Israel. In a joint statement on the Soviet Union’s refusal to issue exit visas to Valery and Galina Panov. they said: “This is a brutal and unexpected act of bad faith on the part of the Soviet authorities who have failed to honor their pledge.”

Jackson’s attack on the policies of Dr. Kissinger and the Nixon Administration came shortly after Dr. Kissinger reiterated to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the Soviet Union should receive most favored nation status from the U.S. without “transformation of the Soviet system.”

SENSITIVE TO JEWISH PLIGHT UNDER NAZISM

Sen. George S. McGovern (D.S.D.) drew a parallel at the hearings with the Nazi destruction of the Jews and Soviet repression. “When the Nazis were slaughtering Jews in Germany,” he asked Dr. Kissinger, did he think U.S. policy should have been directed against halting it a although that was an internal policy too.

“In the 1930s,” Dr. Kissinger replied, “I was part of that persecuted minority, so I am not insensitive to that situation.” As a historian, he said, he believed that if the free nations had taken action to curb Nazi aggression that would have been an effective action. But Dr. Kissinger said that in the case of the USSR he felt that reducing the danger of war and “forcing the Soviet Union in a cooperative system” may “over a period of time mitigate their system.” Dr. Kissinger will be on the stand when the hearing continues tomorrow.