U.S. Urged to Encourage Gorbachev’s Reforms

When Jewish emigration from the Soviet Union reached an all-time high of 51,330 in 1979, it fell only a little short of the 60,000-a-year mark at which the United States had promised to grant most-favored-nation trading status to the Soviets.

But almost was not good enough for either the American Jewish community or the Carter Administration, which declined to give the Soviets the low tariffs and other concessions that most-favored-nation status confers. Jewish emigration from the Soviet Union dropped steadily thereafter, to a mere 914 last year.

“It was a mistake in 1979 not to grant” the trade concession, Jerry Goodman, director of the National Conference on Soviet Jewry, said recently. “We’ve learned from that experience.”

Glasnost, Other Reforms

Now, Jewish emigration is rising again as part of the glasnost (openness) and democratization reforms of Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev. And U.S. leaders hope, against the experience of 1979, to find ways to encourage rather than discourage the trend.

The Kremlin has permitted 614 Jews to emigrate so far this year, and Jewish leaders are hoping that the total will reach 11,000 before the year is over, despite recent denials by Soviet officials that they have agreed to increase emigration.

“We need substantial and sustained emigration,” California Rep. Mel Levine (D-Santa Monica) said. “That will get a positive response from us.”

More broadly, the Reagan Administration, congressional and other religious leaders are also seeking ways to expand the steps already taken in the Soviet Union to free political prisoners, increase press freedom and institute economic and even political reforms.

A 20-member congressional delegation, led by House Majority Leader Jim Wright (D-Tex.), will travel to Moscow later this month with such questions as part of their agenda, according to congressional staffers. Secretary of State George P. Shultz, who will be there at the same time, will also have such issues in mind, U.S. officials said.

Sakharov Cites Interest

“The West and the entire world have an interest in the success of reforms in the U.S.S.R.,” Andrei D. Sakharov, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist and dissident who was released from internal exile last October, said recently.

Gorbachev faces substantial opposition within the Soviet leadership, Sakharov said. Aid from the West, he contended, is an appropriate response because “a democratically open Soviet society is safer for the surrounding world.”

Sakharov’s view is not automatically endorsed in Washington, where many policy-makers fear that an economically and politically strong Soviet Union is dangerous to the United States.

However, it is generally accepted that improved human rights conditions and expanded internal debate within the Soviet Union are in the American interest and should be encouraged.

Question of Timing

But how and when? If the West offers compensations prematurely, it might be settling for too little. On the other hand, as the 1979 experience seems to suggest, waiting too long can abort a desirable trend.

Agreement is widespread that it is still too early to do more than examine possibilities.

“Things are nowhere near back to the 1974-79 period,” when detente between the superpowers flourished, said Peter Reddaway, director of the Smithsonian’s Kennan Institute for Advance Russian Studies.

The Soviet Union is continuing with its harsh treatment of some dissident groups, and the recent liberalizations are only partial. For example:

-- Few Christian dissidents imprisoned for alleged religious offenses are being released. Hundreds of Baptists, Pentecostalists, Jehovah’s Witnesses and members of other Christian sects remain in jail for such “crimes” as providing religious instruction to their children in violation of a Stalinist law of 1929, according to Natasha Vins, daughter of Baptist Pastor George Vins, who was released eight years ago.

-- Even though Gorbachev’s speeches carry overtones of Russian nationalism, there are no signs that the Kremlin looks any more sympathetically on the national aspirations of other ethnic groups in the Soviet Union. Only one non-Russian “nationalist” dissident, jailed for demanding such minority rights as the use of a national language, has been freed. Ludmilla Alexeyeva, a former Soviet dissident now in the United States and author of “Soviet Dissent,” said: “Absolutely nothing has changed for these prisoners. If anything, conditions are worse” because liberalism would risk a rise in separatist activities.

-- Psychiatric hospitals are still being used for incarcerating dissidents, although two psychiatrists identified with the abuses have been accused of taking bribes.

-- Although censorship within the Soviet Union has eased and jamming of the British Broadcasting Corp. broadcasts has stopped, the U.S.-funded Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty are still jammed.

Several experts believe Gorbachev has adopted his liberal policies merely to promote other ends. In the view of Harry Gelman of the Rand Corp., Gorbachev wants primarily to win the support of the Soviet Union’s educated elite and to improve the Kremlin’s image in the West as a means of influencing U.S. arms and trade policies.

Nonetheless, Gorbachev’s policies have produced welcome changes in Soviet practices, and most specialists believe the United States should consider ways to encourage more reforms.

Helmut Sonnenfeldt, a policy analyst for the Brookings Institution, pointed out that the United States has already taken some steps.

“The easing of export controls on oil-drilling equipment earlier this year, although both sides deny any deal, was one of several concessions,” he said.

Similarly, the Commerce Department decided March 24 to permit U.S. trading partners to export to the Soviet Bloc any products with an American content of less than 10%. Until then, such export had been forbidden for products with any American-made parts at all.

Compared with an arms control agreement and most-favored-nation trading status, these measures do not amount to much. But there is little likelihood that the United States will budge on either of these key issues just to encourage reforms within the Soviet Union.

Limited by Trade Laws

U.S. trade laws restrict the Administration’s flexibility in granting trade concessions to the Soviet Union.

The Jackson-Vanik Amendment denies most-favored-nation status to nations that impede emigration. And a separate amendment, sponsored by former Sen. Adlai Stevenson (D-Ill.), limits low-interest Export-Import Bank loans to the Soviets to $300 million over four years, even if emigration reaches the desired level.

For now, the Jewish emigration rate is far too low to trigger a relaxation of trade barriers to Soviet goods, anyway.

“When it reaches substantial and sustained levels, “ Goodman said, “there would be speedy consideration” by the National Conference on Soviet Jewry of support for most-favored-nation status for the Soviets.

Meanwhile, Goodman’s group has asked Secretary of State Shultz to tell Moscow that promising first steps would include quick exit visas for Jews who have served prison terms, followed by emigration of the 12,000 people whose applications to leave have been denied.