Speech #910070697

Katzenbach wrote in the letter I just quoted from thatSection 212(a) (28) has the unfortunate effect of presenting a damaging picture of this country as one fearful of opposing views. We have nothing to fear in this regard and much to gain by offering citizens of other countries a look at the free institutions of the United States. The New York Times aptly noted in its editorial on the Fuentes incident thatThe basic problem is that the immigration law on exclusion is a vestige of the restrictive era of the nineteen fifties. Section 212(a) (28) is an ignominious reminder of the times which produced it1952 and the McCarranWalter Act. a bill which Congress enacted over President Trumans veto and of the McCarthy era then just beginning. In 1965 we abolished the highly discriminatory national origins quota system which for decades had formed the basis of our immigration policy. and which the 1952 act reinforced. It is surely time to repeal this provision of our immigration legislation which prohibits entry on the basis of a persons beliefs. The national security of this country would be no more endangered by a visit from a celebrated leftist Mexican novelist than it was by the visit in 1961 of Khrushchevs soninlaw and the then editor of Izvestia. Aleksey Adzhubi and Khrushchevs press secretary.