Speech #980051236

Mr. Speaker. the Soviet leadership under Yuriy Andropov has virtually choked off all emigration from the Soviet Union. It has intensified a vicious and officially orchestrated campaign of antiSemitism. It has now concocted a phony front organization with the dual goal of disgracefully falsifying the past and deceitfully denying the present.. The newly created Soviet AntiZionist Committee charges Zionist collusion with the S.S. and the Gestapo during World War II. Hitlers propaganda chief. Goebbels. could not have outdone this "Big Lie." But the Soviet AntiZionist Committee also claims that Jewish emigration from the Soviet Union has stopped since no more Jews wish to leave the Soviet Union. As chairman of the last bipartisan U.S. congressional delegation that visited the Soviet Union earlier this year. I can categorically state that the Soviet claim is an unadulterated lie. There are tens of thousands eager to leave the Soviet Union. Our best estimates run to over 300.000. I challenge Yuriy Andropov to open the gates and let the world see whether emigration from the Soviet Union has stopped because the Russian Government stopped it or because Soviet Jews no longer wish to leave Andropovs empire.