Zionist activists continued their struggle in the context of the global process of détente that so suited the interests of the two superpowers Although the number of Jews granted exit visas continued to grow, at the same time the number of refuseniks also increased; their suffering was supposed to serve as an intimidating example to all dissidents, especially to those who were considering emigration. The harsh Soviet regime tried to make this example convincing. Refuseniks in Kiev, for example, turned to the American people:

We, who have been denied the right, are located behind a curtain of numbers and words about free emigration. We live in the Soviet Union against our will; the laws of this country no longer protect us. We are threatened with prison for attending synagogues or for commemorating those who were tortured and murdered in Babii Yar and the Warsaw ghetto. The majority of us have been fired from our jobs; we don’t know who decides our fate and what awaits us in the future. Frequent threats of arrest on the part of state bureaucrats, intimidating radio broadcasts and articles in the newspapers create an atmosphere of psychological terror around us. We have been deprived of the right to live but not given an opportunity to leave. We appeal to you, the people of a great country at this difficult time. Help us.[1]

Letters that flowed from various locations in the Soviet Union to Jewish organizations and to the White House encapsulated everything: a cry from the soul, a howl of despair, a prayer, and an appeal for help.

Rumors about the introduction of a tax on education began to spread starting in the fall of 1970. The regime tried to exploit the fact that in developed capitalist countries higher education was private and costly. Two months after Nixon’s Moscow visit, the Soviet leadership considered the moment was propitious. On August 3, 1972 ─ without any official declaration ─ OVIR offices displayed “price lists” for specialists, ranging from 4,500 rubles to 12,000 depending on the type of university diploma (The average salary of young engineers and scientists was around 100 – 120 rubles a month). Those with a candidate of science degree (roughly equivalent to a western Ph.D.) had to pay an additional 5,100 rubles (1,700 for each year of graduate studies) and a doctor of sciences had to pay an additional 6,400 rubles. These sums, of course, were in addition to the 900 rubles that was taken for the renunciation of citizenship and the exit visa for each adult member of the family. It looked like the price list of a communist slave market.

Quickly learning of the new tax, the Liaison Bureau passed on the information to AIPAC in the U.S. so that it could inform American lawmakers and also to the National Conference on Soviet Jewry in order to alert the Jewish establishment.

Leonard Schroeter, who visited the Soviet Union in September 1972, wrote: “In all four cities (Moscow, Leningrad, Riga, and Minsk), Jewish leaders told me that they were going through a most difficult time. They connected this to President Nixon’s recent visit. … Jamming of foreign stations was intensified. … Efforts to isolate the Soviet population from any contact with foreigners were also reinforced. Widespread interrogations at the KGB and the disconnecting of activists’ phones, which had started before the visit, were expanded after its conclusion.”[2]

Refusenik circles came to their own conclusion: Nixon, the president of a country that for decades was fighting for human rights observance throughout the world, had betrayed them. He had considered the sale of grain more important than human rights, and his visit to the Soviet Union had turned into a real catastrophe for the refuseniks. The activists were convinced that only massive political and economic pressure on the Soviet regime could force it to reduce its harassment and to abrogate the education tax.

The KGB, apparently, assumed that Nixon’s striving for détente carried considerably more weight than the unpleasantness connected to the education tax. It also considered that the Jewish establishment would refrain from active protest out of fear of being accused of deterring the positive dynamics of Soviet-American relations. Ultimately they miscalculated.

The Soviets introduced a tax that was calculated on the basis of Western standards but was totally unrealistic in the impoverished Soviet conditions. The Western Jewish world was furious. The question “to pay or not to pay?” was not long on the agenda.

Zionist activists in the Soviet Union were also categorically opposed to payment of the tax under any circumstances. “The West received a protest letter from ten prominent refusenik scientists headed by corresponding member of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, Benjamin Levich, at which it was stressed that imposition of the new tax would turn educated Jews into the twentieth century slaves. Five hundred Soviet Jews sent a protest letter to the UN Secretary-General requesting that the issue of free emigration be placed before the UN General Assembly.”[3]

We, [refuseniks] understood that the goal of the tax was to make it impossible for the educated stratum of Soviet Jewry to leave the country. If the Jews had been able to pay this tax (the Levich family, for example, would have had to pay over 100,000 rubles, which equaled about seventy annual engineer’s salaries), the authorities would have introduced additional payments or restrictions. The tax also presented Jewish youth with two losing alternatives: 1) study and then be unable to leave because of the high tax, or 2) don’t study and become an easy prey for army recruitment with the consequent secrecy restrictions and impossibility of leaving. In such conditions, what could be said about the opportunity for refusenik children to receive an education?

The stream of protests from the Soviet Union in connection with the new tax quickly expanded. In parallel the amount of protest actions in the West also grew and they were widely covered in the media.

 The Russians thought that they were very clever,” recalls Jerry Goodman, former general director of the National Conference.[4] “After Nixon’s departure they introduced the education tax. We went crazy and Soviet Jews went crazy. We declared publicly, “Mr. President, they betrayed you. They lied to you, Mr. President.” Nixon himself felt that he had been set up ─ the Soviets waited to impose the tax until after he had returned to the U.S. and was still in a state of euphoria from the successful meeting. We undertook to mobilize the congressmen. Jewish members of the House and Senate were always the first to respond in such cases and they carried the others along with them. Some, like Jack Kemp from New York, had Jewish voters; others were sympathetic to the struggle of Soviet Jews and the topic of free emigration; some joined because of their anti-Soviet convictions. There were many reasons why people joined the protest…. We were also supported by the labor movement, which was anti-Soviet.

 Education in the Soviet Union was free. The sole obligation imposed on a young specialist was to work for three years in institutions designated by the government. There was no legislation concerning repayment for the cost of education upon leaving the country. The education tax was thus illegal from a juridical point of view. The Soviet government’s contention that in moving to another country the citizen retroactively lost his or her right to a free education and therefore was obliged to compensate the Soviet Union for it seemed absurd.

On the other hand, when Soviet citizens emigrated, they were deprived of the property they had acquired, the pensions that they had earned, and their share in the country’s wealth, which, according to the constitution, belonged in equal measure to all citizens of the Soviet Union. Vladimir Mash, a professor and doctor of economics from Moscow State University, calculated that these losses represented a larger sum than the amount the state claimed was due them under the education tax.

It was rather clear that the introduction of the tax was not merely an attempt to obtain economic compensation ─ after all, rubles were printed as needed in the Soviet Union and prices were set and controlled by the state. The tax was part of a general Soviet offensive against the Zionist movement. In response the Soviet Union received the Jackson-Vanik Amendment, which linked privileges in trade agreements to free emigration. Soviet citizens who supported this linkage put themselves at no small risk because in the regime’s eyes, they became advocates of economic sabotage against the Soviet Union. Only the desperate conditions could impel the Jewish leaders to embark on such an initiative. The Liaison Bureau, the wiser for its experience, supported the amendment but urged the refuseniks not to advocate it too blatantly.

Nehemiah Levanon flew to Washington as soon as OVIR began to demand payment of the tax. “I met with the leadership of the National Conference,” he wrote, “and supported their decision to turn first to the White House and the State Department, but I was not sure that they would receive strong support there. I met also with Sy Kennan, the executive director of AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee), the Israeli lobby in Congress, and explained the dangers threatening aliya if the education tax would be implemented. He immediately took up the matter, spoke with several influential senators, and suggested that Morrie Amitay, Senator Abe Ribicoff’s aide, should bring together other senators’ aides for a discussion, which was done.”[5]

The text of the tax law was not published until the end of December.

In your opinion, who was the first person in the Soviet Union to link emigration to economics? I asked Volodia Slepak.[6]

Kirill Khenkin, Volodia replied confidently. At one time, Kirill was a Soviet spy in the West; he later returned and became a dissident. I was the first to hear this idea from him.

Was Khenkin a Jew?

Half. His father was an opera singer in Paris and his mother was a Russian princess from an émigré family. He studied at the Sorbonne.

How did you formulate the idea?

We started with the basic idea of linking emigration to economic relations, nothing more. Louis Rosenblum, president of the Union of Councils, responded to it.

In an interview to his son Daniel, Louis Rosenblum, the first president of the UCSJ, confirmed this assertion but not with regard to the Jackson-Vanik Amendment.[7]

Daniel: Did Senator Jackson and Congressman Vanik arrive at this idea independently or did they receive some suggestion?

Louis: It’s quite possible that some group suggested it but I don’t know which one.

Daniel: This wasn’t your organization, the Union of Councils?

Louis: No. We directed our energy at a different form of economic pressure, a boycott. Our chief target was Pepsi Cola, which had concluded a trade agreement with the Soviet Union not long before this. Boycott actions began in December 1972 and continued throughout the U.S. for many months. We were very happy, however, when two respected legislators, Jackson and Vanik, became the sponsors of an amendment with such “strong teeth.” We immediately became ardent adherents.

Nehemiah Levanon wrote that Senator Jackson, indignant about the education tax, asked his young assistant Richard Perle to investigate the possibility of a struggle against the tax.[8] Perle brought the issue to a forum that was specially created at the initiative of AIPAC director Sy Kennan. Levanon’s version partially corresponds to the story that I heard from Jerry Goodman, former director of the National Conference.

How did you arrive at the idea of the amendment? I asked Jerry.[9]

Sy Kennan invited me to Washington and arranged a meeting with Richard Perle from Senator Jackson’s office and with Mark Talisman from Congressman Vanik’s office and with people from the offices of the Jewish senators Jacob Javits and Abe Ribicoff. Sy Kennan taught me a lot…. I’ll never forget that he taught me things about which I myself would never have thought to ask. We put together an excellent team, a kind of brainy attack group. Together we were a force. When we needed a consultant, I brought in academics. I’ll never forget the Sovietologists Maurice Friedberg and Abe Brumberg. They were good Jews and we included them in our collective. Together we discussed the situation.

How many people were in your group?

The number changed and the people changed, but generally there were no more than a dozen at one time. They included Bill Korey from B’nai Brith, Phil Baum from the American Jewish Congress, Yehuda Hellman from the Conference of Presidents, Sy Kennan from AIPAC, who was very knowledgeable about Washington and legislation, Mark Talisman and Richard Perle from Jackson’s staff, and Morris Amitay, who worked for Ribicoff. This constituted our “Jewish conspiracy,” a group of highly motivated people located in the necessary places (he laughs).

Was the idea for the amendment conceived in this group?

In some sense. In its initial form the idea belonged to a young woman, a former member of the group who was working for Congressman Bert Podell from Brooklyn. Unfortunately, I don’t remember her name. Senator Jacob Javits, if my memory does not betray me, was the first to express the idea publicly. Speaking at a meeting organized by the Greater New York Conference on Soviet Jewry, he mentioned a link between emigration and trade.

The idea, apparently, arose at the “brain trust” forum of Perle, Talisman, this young woman, and Sy Kennan. They called me to Washington to verify the idea, which I liked a lot. On September 26, we called a special meeting of the leadership nucleus of the Conference to work out a decision with regard to the tax. Richard Perle then phoned me and said, “Henry Jackson wants to speak at your meeting.” I conferred with our chairman, Richie Maas, and we decided: let him speak. There were 125 people at the meeting but we didn’t consult with anyone else. That was a bit undemocratic but what could we do? Discuss? Vote? I’ll never forget it! The meeting took place in the B’nai B’rith building. Jackson came and presented the details of the amendment to us at the forum and we reached consensus about its general features. We had many disagreements and some objected to it. Nixon’s supporters tried to soften the formulation. But what a senator Jackson was! He, himself, was the son of immigrants, and he told us about his Norwegian parents: “I know what it is to find a new home.” The Nazi conquest of Norway made a deep impression on him. In 1945 he visited the Buchenwald death camp just after its liberation. In the 1950s, stories about the Holocaust started to circulate and people spoke about what Americans could do and what they should have done; this influenced many congressmen. Returning to our meeting: on the following day, September 27, we approved Jackson’s proposal by an overwhelming majority. Thus began the struggle for the Jackson-Vanik Amendment. The Liaison Bureau most definitely supported the amendment, absolutely! It supplied us with information that we could not obtain anywhere else. It was always involved in the matter.

That was only the beginning; the struggle on behalf of the amendment took several years.

You know, many years later, someone asked me whether we could do that again. I answered honestly, “I don’t think so.” Why did I say that? Because at the time the forces of history and the stars and planets were aligned in the right order. We had the labor movement, which was anti-Soviet, with us. With us initially was Nixon, who wanted détente but felt cheated. Jackson and a whole group of congressmen were with us. Everything lined up correctly.

 The National Conference for Soviet Jewry had been created at the Liaison Bureau’s initiative in order to unite the efforts of the major American Jewish organizations. Before the Jackson-Vanik Amendment, the Conference engaged mainly in explanatory work among Jews and non-Jews and in lobbying against the persecution of Soviet Jews and restrictions on their emigration. Having decided to support the amendment, the Conference for the first time embarked on a primarily political struggle.[10] The problems of emigration, refuseniks, and prisoners of Zion became part of the most sensitive relations between the two superpowers, and American legislators literally competed for the right to actively participate in this struggle.

One must give credit to Senator Jackson: he fought for the Jews not out of selfish reasons but in the name of the principles in which he believed. In the Senate he represented the state of Washington, which had a small percentage of Jews in its population; hence, no one could suspect him of running after Jewish votes. On September 27, 1971, after the idea of the amendment had been approved by the Conference leadership, Senator Jackson first spoke about it in the Senate, stating his intention to table a draft of a trade amendment that would link potential trade advantages to observance of human rights, especially the right to free emigration. Nixon and Kissinger gave the idea a hostile reception. They argued, in effect, that the amendment would become an obstacle to the end of the Cold War, have an inverse effect on emigration, and further endanger Soviet Jews.

A struggle began that lasted over two years. Nixon’s administration’s interests in speedy ratification of a trade law clashed with the adamant position of a group of senators and representatives who were not prepared to grant the most favored nation status to a country with a non-market economy that did not observe human rights and had just introduced a barbaric decree legalizing a form of twentieth century intellectual slave trade.

The winds of global policy touched the activists in the Zionist movement and the refuseniks, who were dreaming only of inmigrating to their historic motherland. They suddenly found themselves in the center of a most complicated struggle whose nature was far from clear. The activists withstood the test. Despite persecution and arrests, they continued to express support for the Jackson-Vanik Amendment.

On September 19, 1972, the activists went to demonstrate in the reception room of the Supreme Soviet, which was in session at that time, in order to hand over a petition of protest against the education tax. Thirty-one people were detained during this action. Some of them were released but the remainder received sentences ranging from a fine to fifteen days of imprisonment.[11] On the same day a group of Jews attempted to hold a hunger strike protest at the Central Telegraph Agency building. Two participants, Vladimir Slepak and Efim Manevich, were sentenced to fifteen days.[12]

In Washington the effort to mobilize Senators in support of the amendment continued. At the beginning of October, Senators Jackson and Ribicoff already had thirty-two supporters. Senator Javits, who at first did not support it as he considered that it unnecessarily offended the Nixon administration, joined its supporters after it had been modified. The number of supporters eventually grew to 76, which constituted over three-quarters of the Senate.

In parallel, votes were mobilized in the House of Representatives. By January 1973, 144 representatives supported Charles Vanik. After an active campaign by voters, labor unions, and some religious groups, where the muscle of the grass roots activists played a considerable role, by the beginning of February the amendment had garnered 238 supporters, over half of the House representatives.

The Nixon government did not want to link the trade agreement with Jewish emigration. Increasing pressure was applied on the legislators to withdraw the amendment without discussion. The pressure of the presidential administration was unable, however, to deter the sponsors of the amendment, who were inspired by the refuseniks’ unswerving position. On March 8, 1973, 309 refuseniks from six cities (Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev, Kharkov, Novosibirsk, and Vilnius) sent a letter to Senators Wilbur Mills and Henry Jackson supporting the amendment. On March 16, 1973, Henry Jackson officially presented it to the Senate in the name of 77 senators.

The activity of the U.S. congressmen was carefully followed on the other side of the ocean. Wanting to dampen the Americans’ enthusiasm and, as if hinting that it would be better to reach an agreement quietly behind the scenes, Soviet authorities twice released 600 people without requiring payment of the education tax. But Senator Jackson was implacable, favoring only a legislative act. He did not want to leave the issue to the discretion of the Soviet leadership.

On the Soviet side, the attitude toward the tax was also ambivalent. The advocates of détente, headed by Brezhnev (whose personal prestige depended on the speedy signing of a trade agreement) were opposed by conservatives, who were more concerned with problems of domestic stability, control over society, and a brain drain.

A second summit was planned for Washington in June 1973. Preparations were in full swing The Jewish question threatened to spoil Brezhnev’s festive celebration of Soviet-American détente and the signing of a trade agreement. In such conditions, no one dared to contradict the general-secretary.

The Kremlin reacted immediately to the formal presentation of the Jackson Amendment in the Senate. A discussion was held in the Politburo four days later. The shorthand record of that meeting was kept and published in 1996 inthe journal Novoe Vremia.[13] Below are some details of the record that throw light on the Soviet leadership’s attitude to the amendment and to Jewish emigration.

 

Excerpt from the Minutes of a Politburo Meeting

                                                        Moscow, 20 March 1973

Top Secret

Only copy

Working transcript

Brezhnev: When you read the materials, and I read everything, then you see that, all the same, the official visit to the U.S. has been seriously impeded by the issue of Zionism. In the last few months, hysteria has been whipped up around the so-called education tax on individuals emigrating abroad. … We talked about this last year. The instructions are not being followed. This worries me. I’m not raising the question about repealing the law, but if you want, it, too, could be raised. Either we’ll make money from this business, or we implement the planned policy with regard to the U.S. Taking advantage of articles of the constitution, Jackson was able to introduce an amendment even before Nixon introduced legislation on the granting of most favored nation status. The senator tabled the amendment and Congress could not refuse to discuss it. Jackson got there first. And so, I think: what’s the point of our work, what’s the point of all our efforts if this is the way things turn out. There’s no point!

Andropov: If I may. I bear responsibility for your last instruction, which was given at the previous Politburo [meeting]. It was my fault that we delayed implementing your instructions for six days (it was simply the unwieldiness of our apparatus.)…

Brezhnev: Before Comrade Dobrynin’s departure, Comrade Grechko and I spoke with him…. There was also discussion about how to deal with the Jewish question. We show concern, and what do we get for that? Nothing.

Andropov: I repeat, we were delayed for five days.

Brezhnev: On Saturday and Sunday I didn’t even go outside, and now I will have to devote even more time to these questions.

Andropov: …There was your directive in November and December ─ let them out and we let out 600 people without collecting the tax and then another 600 people. And then the law went into effect, and we went to work. I would say that 75 percent of those leaving don’t pay anything at all, and the people who do repay constitute 13 percent. Since Monday, we haven’t been collecting the fee.

Brezhnev: Iurii Vladimirovich, excuse me, here is the document. I’ll read it: in 1972 out of 28,816 individuals of Jewish nationality who departed from the USSR, 912 with higher education, in accordance with the Decree of the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet, reimbursed expenditures in the amount of 4,427,000 rubles. This is for 1972.

         Over two months in 1973, 3,318 people left, of whom 393 with a higher education paid 1,561,375 rubles. This is how much our general discussions are worth. This is why the Zionists are yelling. Jackson relies on this, and Kissinger comes to Dobrynin and says, “We understand that this is an internal matter and we can’t interfere. We also have laws.” At the same time he says, “Help us out somehow. Nixon can’t push through the legislation. He’s working with the senators.” Why do we need this million?

Andropov: I received that directive through Suslov in November. It was said that this was a one-time matter. So we treated it as such, Leonid Il’ich. Then the law went into effect. I’ll say it again, ten to eleven percent of those leaving pay.

         Leonid Il’ich, I want to ask you to consider yet another question. Comrade Gromyko is sitting here, he knows: the British once introduced a proposal to UNESCO on the prevention of a brain drain. We are now letting out the elderly, children, and adults. Doctors, engineers, and so forth are leaving. We are now receiving applications even from academicians. I gave you a list.

Brezhnev:…There’s no need to repeal the law. … But at this particular time, when the Zionists have incited a campaign around the Jackson Amendment and around the bill on granting us [most favored nation] status, we need to let them out. It’s not a matter of the status. They need, in general, to spark a conflict between the Soviet Union and America. There is a group of Republicans determined to spoil the rapprochement between the Soviet Union and America. Nixon is in favor, the administration is in favor, but many senators are against, merely because we are collecting a fee from the Jews.

Kosygin: But we should not be letting out those whom we don’t want to let go. …

Brezhnev: Zionism is making us stupid, and we take money from an old lady who has received an education If she has a higher education ─ she must pay the money to Comrade Shchelokov [minister of the interior]. He will give you a slip of paper, and then you can go to Israel. This is what the policy is. Of course, I’m not forgetting in all of this that it is not only academicians that we shouldn’t let out, but also mid-level specialists. I don’t want to quarrel with the Arabs. …

         You’ll forgive me for speaking so bluntly. But I’m doing so because the Politburo had a certain opinion, but there is no practical resolution. Comrades, do you accept this in principle?

Everyone: Correct.

…………..

Kosygin: Let’s take proposals.

Brezhnev: There is no need to give written instructions. We need to call in our officials and tell them. Moreover, not everyone will understand, they might blurt out that these are tactical steps. ….[14]

 

On the day after the meeting, March 21, 1973, the education tax was abolished de facto and the practice of requiring payment for education was not renewed. In order to inform the West about this, the regime used the services of Viktor Louis, a Soviet correspondent of Jewish origin who had been utilized in the past for such matters. Nixon soon met with the congressmen and tried to influence their position. Asserting that his administration had already attained the abolishment of the education tax, he said there was no more need for the amendment. “If you believe this, Mister President,” Senator Jackson said to him, “then you have been blinded.”[15] The tax continued to exist de jure and the regime occasionally released rumors that it was planning to re-implement it.

From Senator Jackson’s point of view, the abrogation of the tax represented only a partial concession by the Soviets because the amendment spoke about freedom of emigration as a whole. The senator continued his struggle. Overt opponents of the amendment included not only the presidential administration but also American economic circles interested in expanding trade with the Soviet Union and counties of Eastern Europe, and, of course, the Soviet government, operating via diplomatic channels and also trying to influence public opinion. Supporters of the amendment included Zionist activists and the democratic dissident movement in the Soviet Union, whose opinions were widely covered in the West; leaders of American Jewry; various ethnic groups in the U.S. whose peoples were under the Soviet yoke (the Baltic peoples, Germans, and Ukrainians); American trade unions; and, naturally, public opinion, which was very sensitive to freedom of emigration.[16]

When Kissinger realized that Jackson would not renege on the amendment and the Soviet Union would not agree to free emigration, he suggested that the sides negotiate mutually acceptable conditions under which the Soviets could nevertheless receive the most favored nation status. To advance this goal, he set up talks between Jackson and his team, on the one hand, and the Soviet ambassador to the U.S., Anatolii Dobrynin, on the other. The discussion concerned a mutually acceptable quota for emigration. After a series of consultations, Jackson proposed a figure of 60,000 people annually.

Nixon and Kissinger also attempted to undermine support for the amendment within the Jewish community. Louis Rosenblum describes one such attempt:

 Nixon had a friend, a rich Jew from Detroit named Max Fisher, who had contributed money to Nixon’s campaign. Nixon and Kissinger asked him somehow to influence the Jewish establishment to oppose the Jackson-Vanik Amendment. Max Fisher was a friend of Jacob Stein, president of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. Fisher suggested that Stein and fourteen of his presidential colleagues meet with Kissinger and Nixon. What Jewish leader would refuse a private meeting with the president of the United States? The meeting took place on April 19, 1973. After the meeting, they issued a statement in which they thanked the presidential administration and Congress for their efforts on behalf of Soviet Jews but they left out any mention of the Jackson-Vanik Amendment. Apparently, they were not united on the issue. … This potential indecisiveness had to be nipped in the bud. Two days later, I sought out Kirill Khenkin in Moscow, sketched the situation, and said, “You and your friends must write to the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, stating your position on the Jackson-Vanik Amendment and what you would like their position to be.” … Two days later, Jacob Stein received a letter in support of the amendment signed by a dozen Jewish activists. It did its job, serving as a reminder from those who were risking their lives and adding to the anger and charges of betrayal on the part of American Jews. It thus reinforced the determination of this doubting group of Jewish leaders. The result was public support of the amendment.[17]

 Israel found itself in a delicate situation. Of course, the Liaison Bureau and the government were wholeheartedly for the amendment. But the U.S. administration’s pressure on Israeli prime minister Golda Meir to oppose the amendment presented no small problem. The Israeli ambassador to the U.S. at the time, Simcha Dinitz, agreed with Kissinger’s position.

“When I returned home from the States,” wrote Levanon, “a surprise awaited me. Golda phoned and said, ‘Yesterday Jack Stein, one of the influential leaders of conservative circles in the States, visited me. He said that Kissinger asked him to work on American Jews to oppose the Jackson Amendment. He decided to consult with Dinitz, who advised him to accept the proposal. What was his astonishment when, after this, the leaders of Jewish organizations attacked him, asserting that the head of the “Bureau,” Levanon, stressed the extraordinary importance of this amendment. Jack asked me, “How many ambassadors does Israel have in the United States?”’ said Golda angrily.” I immediately proposed to resign but she said, ‘It’s insolent to interpret my words that way,’ and she hung up the phone.”[18]

Minister Israel Galili settled the issue. He convinced Golda that Ambassador Dinitz was obligated to maintain good relations with the White House whereas Nehemiah Levanon had the task of fighting for aliya from the Soviet Union. The Jewish world in the U.S. was sufficiently sophisticated to understand such subtleties. This was a convenient way out for the prime minister. The problem arose again, however, when Golda had to travel to the U.S. with a rather long list of military purchases and to meet with President Nixon. Ambassador Dinitz sent a telegram affirming that Nixon was angry at the Jews for supporting the Jackson Amendment. It would be desirable, wrote Dinitz, if Israel made a good-will gesture toward the president and if he, Dinitz, were entrusted with cooling the hotheads with regard to the Jackson Amendment. Golda called together several ministers for consultation. “I said at the meeting,” wrote Levanon, “that Dinitz’s appeal to the Jews could not be kept secret and that it was unthinkable that the government of Israel advise American Jews to oppose an amendment that could really facilitate emigration. From my point of view, the Jackson Amendment represented a historic turning point: the strongest power in the world was willing to put at risk its political and economic interests in order to save Jews, and this was the same country that closed its gates to Jewish refugees from Germany on the eve of World War II.”[19]

It later came out that Golda did not entrust Dinitz with opposing the amendment. It should be noted that it was not clear at that time whether the Senate would pass the amendment. The administration’s pressure was so strong that, in Dinitz’s opinion, there was no chance of passage. The law was not discussed in the Senate until December 1973 and efforts were made to withdraw the amendment without discussion.

From the start of 1974, various circles exerted ever stronger pressure on the House and Senate to drop the amendment. The administration’s pressure and, perhaps, the diplomatic art of Georgii Arbatov, director of the Moscow Institute of the USA and Canada, caused even the co-sponsor, representative Charles Vanik, to waver. “Arbatov spoke with me like a ‘Slav’ to a ‘Slav,’” Vanik told Levanon. “I didn’t succeed in changing his opinion,” recalls Levanon, “but he accepted my warning not to act hastily and became quieter after that.”[20]

I recall Vanik’s visiting Moscow and trying to convince us not to support the amendment. He didn’t succeed. The refuseniks were steadfast, despite the risk of the regime’s harsh reprisals. “On September 1, 1974, 83 Jews from Moscow, Kiev, Leningrad and other cities sent a letter in support of the amendment.”[21]

In the end, the amendment to the trade law was finally adopted in December 1974 by the House of Representatives and by the Senate and on January 3, 1975 President Ford signed the Trade Bill into law together with this amendment.

Unfortunately, another amendment to the trade law, the Stevenson Amendment, which was adopted in December 1974, practically deprived the Jackson-Vanik Amendment of any effect. Stevenson utilized the support in Congress for the Jackson-Vanik Amendment and passed his amendment without opposition. Although Jackson and his supporters were not thrilled with the new amendment, they were unable correctly to gauge its damage. The Stevenson Amendment limited the amount of credits granted under the trade law to 300 million dollars, which was unacceptable for a country like the Soviet Union. Whereas the Jackson-Vanik Amendment had a “carrot” in the form of greater credits and a “stick” in the form of withholding them, the Stevenson Amendment reduced the “carrot” to the point that it was no longer of interest to the Soviet side. In response to the Stevenson Amendment, the Soviet Union refused to sign the trade  agreement and made the conditions for emigration tougher. Rumors then began to spread that the Jackson-Vanik Amendment undermined the signing of a trade agreement, caused a worsening in the emigration situation, and harmed the U.S. economy. “Some U.S. political figures, primarily Kissinger, began to assert that the amendment had a negative effect on the condition of Soviet Jews. In answer, seventy Jewish activists from various Soviet cities signed a letter in support of the amendment.”[22]

Adoption of the Jackson-Vanik Amendment was an extremely difficult matter, but the process of abolishing it is proving even more complex. Despite the fact that the country whose barbaric emigration policy engendered it has ceased to exist, the amendment still stands, embroiled in endless disputes for and against and innumerable efforts to abrogate it. Perhaps, due partly to the amendment, Soviet leaders ultimately became aware of the need for democratization and restructuring.