Political developments in the Soviet Union will be reported by NBC-TV News during its coverage of the Olympic Games in Moscow this summer, it was announced this week by Jacqueline Levine, past president of the Metropolitan New Jersey Conference on Soviet Jewry. Jane Pfeiffer, board chairman of NBC gave this assurance to Sam Kusumoto, president of the New Jersey-based Minolta Corporation, after he wrote to Ms. Pfeiffer, expressing his company’s concern that the games might “foster a wholesale violation of the rights of minorities.”
Kusumoto informed Ms. Pfeiffer that he had been apprised of this potential problem at a meeting with Ms. Levine and Meyer Fine, executive director of the Soviet Jewry Conference. Kusumoto, whose camera firm will be sponsoring NBC’s national broadcast of the Olympic Games, had informed Ms. Pfeiffer that he shared the Conference’s concern that the true spirit of the Olympics might be violated and “should this begin to develop, we would be unhappy to lend our support to the games via sponsorship.” He had asked NBC-TV to “take whatever steps are possible to avoid such violations of human rights.”
Ms. Pfeiffer told Kusumoto that “NBC will concentrate on the Games themselves and on giving American athletes the recognition they deserve,” adding that NBC News “has reported regularly on humane issues and political protests in the Soviet Union and NBC’s attention and concern in this area will not diminish.”
REMINDER: There will be no Bulletin dated Nov. 12 due to Veteran’s Day, a postal holiday.
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.
