Max Kampelman, a high-ranking U.S. diplomat, told a meeting here that Western unity achieved at the recent review of the Helsinki Accords in Madrid should prompt continued use of these forums to win human rights concessions from the Soviet Union.
According to Kampelman, co-chairman of the American delegation to the 35-nation Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, the fear that the Soviet Union would gain more from the 1975 Helsinki pact than the West, was allayed during the Madrid session, now in recess to Jan. 27.
“Instead of Helsinki becoming a tool for Soviet propaganda, it is now a tool for liberty and human rights,” he told an audience of some 100 Jews and Christians at the Episcopal Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine in Manhattan.
Taking note of the one-time U.S. apprehension that the treaty would merely serve Soviet interests by recognizing much of the USSR’s postwar takeover of Eastern Europe, Kampelman observed that the reverse has come true: “It is now a tool for the West. We have learned how to use it,” he declared.
Kampelman was keynote speaker on a program titled, “The Road from Helsinki to Madrid: Exploring the paths of Justice and Human Dignity,” under cosponsorship of the Cathedral Church, the Episcopal Diocese of New York and the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith.
Kampelman, who is also vice-chairman of the ADL’s National Commission, said that in the forthcoming session the U.S. will support a follow-up meeting to Madrid, to further pursue Soviet compliance on human rights issues. In addition, he said, the U.S. will seek new areas of cooperation, such as an agreement to curtail international terrorism and to develop bilateral discussions between the 35 signatories to the treaty.
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.
