I did not know Mr. Vanik personally. but as Chairman of the Helsinki Commission. I am particularly familiar with his contribution to the struggle to allow Soviet Jews to leave the Soviet Union and emigrate to Israel. In the early 1970s. Soviet Jews who wished to emigrate to Israel faced government harassment and even prison terms in one of the many labor camps stretched along the eleven time zones of the Soviet Union. This issue became especially acute in 1972 when the Soviet government announced it would level an onerous "education tax" on Soviet Jews who wished to emigrate. As Chairman of the Subcommittee on Trade of the House Ways and Means Committee. Mr. Vanik stepped up to sponsor an amendment to the Trade Reform Bill of 1974 introduced by Senator Henry Jackson of Washington State. This amendment linked awarding Most Favored Nation trade status to a nations record on unhindered emigration for its citizens. President Nixon and Mr. Kissinger didnt like it. but it was a law whose time had come.
Keywords matched
emigration emigrate