I want to advise the Senate that thousands of American citizens have been the victims of either fraud or embezzlement by the agency legally designated by the Soviet Government as the sole vehicle for the shipment of parcels to citizens of the U.S.S.R. This crime is all the more flagrant because it has been practiced on people of modest means who have been endeavoring to ease the plight of their relatives and friends in the Soviet Union by sending them parcels of food and clothing. The great majority of these immigrant citizens are workers who earn $50. $60. $80 per week. Many of them have saved for weeks and months in order to be able to purchase and ship the parcels which. they hoped. would bring a small measure of comfort and happiness to relatives on the other side of the Iron Curtain. Now it develops that the parcels purchased by these American citizens have not only not been delivered. but that the heavy duties which they were obliged to prepay on the parcel contents have apparently vanished.
Keywords matched
immigrant