130. Memorandum From Harold Saunders of the National Security Council Staff to the President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bundy)1
McGB:
In response to your query on the status of Soviet Jews,2 State and CIA intelligence confirms that the post-Khrushchev leaders have relaxed a few minor restrictions. But there’s no ground for expecting a big breakthrough. Though the recent concessions are probably mostly window-dressing they may make Jewish life a whit easier. They don’t change the Communist purpose of forcing Jews to forget their heritage and assimilate, but the fact that they’ve been made at all suggests the climate may improve, at least for a time.
Concessions this year simply allow bakeries in some cities to make matzoh for Passover, printing a few secular and prayer books and a monthly magazine in Yiddish and reopening a religious school in Moscow. (Khrushchev had clamped down on all these in 1962–63.) Also, Kosygin has spoken out against anti-Semitism, but mainly in the context of debate over economics and policy toward intellectuals (Jews are leading liberals in both fields).
However, the basic restrictions on all nationality groups and religious sects go on, applied a bit more harshly to Jews than to others (e.g. they’re the only national minority without their own schools). Survival of Jewish practices depends on the local synagogue; there are no nationwide religious or cultural institutions such as other sects have to promote cohesion and pass on the heritage.
It looks as if world opinion may have helped prod Soviet leaders into making these concessions. For instance, we attribute relaxation of the matzoh restrictions to the worldwide press furor in 1964. In fact, we probably have to read most of concessions chiefly as image-polishing. Radio Moscow’s international service in English played up [Page 332] the concessions but the domestic official press made no official announcement.
But we’ve hit a stone wall on all official approaches. The Soviets flatly refuse to deal with the issue on grounds it’s their own business, though this needn’t keep us from hitting them again if the time seems riper. VOA is the one official channel open to us, and it consistently gives straight news coverage to such events as the Washington vigil3 (4 spots in Russian-language broadcasts). But even VOA nervously walks the line between getting our story across and provoking jamming or jeopardizing its general respectability among Russian listeners. Radio Moscow and Tass responses to the vigil showed Moscow is touchy and would like to scare us off. (Radio Moscow: “The White House has again publicly dealt a crippling blow to its much advertised idea of building bridges to the Soviet Union.”)
So the best bet is to plug away in quasi-official ways. Receiving Jewish groups here and sending Presidential messages to them annoys Moscow, but we don’t see any evidence that this kind of thing causes these Soviet leaders to crack down all the harder on their Jews (as we feared with Khrushchev). We’ll push the issue in UN committees (Committee III is considering a convention on eliminating racial discrimination) and in the Commission on Human Rights (eliminating religious discrimination). The embassy can help informally by trying to straighten out specific problems, like arranging matzoh shipments (another form of pressure). The Senate may pass a resolution condemning Soviet restrictions.
Unfortunately, we’re pretty much on our own. We have no evidence that the Moslems or Buddhists are worried enough about their brethren in the USSR to do anything, so there’s not much chance for kicking up a wider storm. The Baptists, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Seventh Day Adventists here are concerned about their people too, but they just add a small local voice.
This approach won’t satisfy the Jewish groups; their public comments on State’s policy are caustic. On the other hand, it’s the only one that holds out hope for even limited results. We also have to balance our connivance in these limited pressures against our larger Soviet interests. So the range of debate is really over how actively State pushes versus how much it follows. The initiative so far has come from the Jewish groups, and they don’t miss many openings. State has clearly [Page 333] decided it shouldn’t lead on this one but will lend a hand to private efforts. Given our limited ability to achieve anything officially and our other priorities, the balance seems about right. Our alternative is to tell State to seek out opportunities to needle Moscow unofficially, but I question whether we want to go that far. [1 line of source text not declassified] Radio Liberty Committee and Radio Free Europe also help. But we can’t say much about those.
- Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Komer Files, USSR, November 1963–March 1966. Confidential. A notation on the memorandum indicates that Bundy wrote on the original, “You have it about right.”↩
- Bundy’s query followed a meeting that he and President’s Special Counsel Lee White had at the White House on September 20 with a delegation pleading for Soviet Jews. The President met very briefly with the group. (Ibid., President’s Daily Diary) Other documentation generated in connection with the meeting includes a September 22 CIA report on “The Current Position of Jews in the USSR” and a State Department report on the “Policy of the United States Concerning the Situation of Soviet Jews” that Benjamin Read forwarded to Bundy on September 27. (Both ibid., National Security File, Komer Files, USSR, November 1963–March 1966)↩
- The Eternal Light Vigil for Soviet Jewry at Lafayette Park across from the White House, September 19, 1965. The President’s message to the participants is included in a report on “Presidential Statements on Soviet Jews” that Saunders forwarded to Bundy on September 20. (Ibid.)↩
- Printed from a copy that bears these typed initials.↩