Speech #920076781

These agreements include the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. the International Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. However. the policy of the Soviet Union has been to deny exit permits to the vast majority of Soviet Jews who request them and to subject many of the petitioners to a variety of harassments ranging from dismissal from employment to imprisonment and physical abuse. Boris Kochubievsky. for example. was put on trial in May 1969 and sentenced to 3 years in prison for issuing a public statement defending Israel and for requesting permission to emigrate. Recently Pravda branded Jews who wanted to go to Israel with the Stalinist term "antiSoviet"-February 17. 1971. Though the number of permits issued has apparently increased somewhat in recent months. permission to leave has been and continues to be routinely denied without any substantive reasons given. Because of the enormous risk involved in applying for an exit permit. it is extremely difficult to determine the precise number of Soviet Jews who wish to emigrate. We can surely assume that the vocal. activist Jewsas well as dissident nonJewish intellectuals and others who wish to leaverepresent only a small percentage of those who would apply for permits if the fear of reprisal were not present. A letter of February 15. 1968. signed by 26 Jewish intellectuals residing in Soviet Lithuania and sent to the Secretary General of that republics Communist Party. estimated that if the borders were opened for emigration. some 80 percent of the Jews in Soviet Lithuania would leave for Israel. Despite the unjust and vicious treatment of Soviet Jewry. over which Jewish and nonJewish Americans. including many Members of the Congress. have expressed great concern. the Nixon administration has apparently done nothing to exert its influence in any way that might alleviate the situation. Last December 26. during the public furor that erupted after the imposition of the death sentence on two of the defendants in the Leningrad conspiracy trials. the President met with prominent American Jewish leaders who requested that the President make a public declaration deploring the Leningrad trials and the treatment of Soviet Jews.