Speaker. as the President prepares to leave for Moscow. the Soviets are preparing for his arrival with sweeping arrests and imprison-. ments of Soviet Jewish activists. Reports reaching the West indicate that more than 50 Jews in Moscow have been forcibly taken from their homes and thrown into prison. with many more barely able to avoid the Russian police by going into hiding. Many of those arrested are prominent scientists whose only offenses have been the submission of requests for emigration permits. These dragnet tactics may seem appropriate to the Soviet authorities. since they apparently will go to any lengths to prevent demonstrations during President Nixons visit by Jewish activists who have been trying unsuccessfully to leave the U.S.S.R. One might have assumed that the President would not consider them appropriate. but his recent remarks at Annapolis indicate that he considers the emigration question an internal Soviet matter in which the United States must not interfere. It is quite likely that those remarks encouraged Soviet authorities to step up their harassment of Soviet Jews seeking to emigrate and further reduce the number actually allowed to leave the country. Mr. Speaker. it should be painful to the President to know that his visit is the excuse for wholesale arrest and intimidation of Soviet citizens who mean him no harm. I have today sent a letter to the President urging him to protest this dragnet. I propose that upon his arrival he should immediately ask not only that these arrested Soviet Jews be released but also that they be allowed to meet with him during his visit. Perhaps such a meeting might convince the President that the right to emigrate is a legitimate concern of our foreign policy and that hundreds of thousands of Soviet Jews need our help if that right is to become a reality.
Keywords matched
emigrate emigration