‘The Clamor Will Go On’

The Soviet news agency Tass’ virulent diatribe on “raging anti-Semitism” in the U.S., apparently published in reaction to the massive pre-summit demonstration on behalf of Soviet Jews, was an exercise in Orwellian “newspeak” filled with tortured logic, misinformation and distortion. We commend you on your editorial (“The Clamor Will Go On,” Dec. 9) condemning it.

As an agency that has been dedicated for 75 years to monitoring and countering anti-Semitism wherever it occurs, the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith has responded to Tass’ assertions, described in Moscow correspondent William Tuohy’s story (Part I, Dec. 8), by addressing a letter to Tass’ Washington bureau chief. Our letter to Tass declares that their report “is drawn from an overheated political imagination and bears no resemblance to reality . . . (It) reflects striking ignorance about its subject and is fatally flawed by its inaccuracies.” We then point out that contrary to Tass’ contentions, right-wing extremism in this country has sharply declined.

ADL’s letter to Tass acknowledges that some anti-Semitism persists in the U.S. However, we write, “unlike the Soviet Union, where anti-Semitism is officially sponsored or sanctioned by the state, American police and courts take action against anti-Semitic extremists and such activity is firmly and overwhelmingly repudiated by the American public and government leaders.”

The Tass dispatch is a matter of concern, deliberately intended to manipulate the uninformed. However, we cannot be fooled, nor will we be deterred from continuing to speak out for Soviet Jews and against Soviet anti-Semitism.

BURTON S. LEVINSON

National Chairman

Anti-Defamation League

Beverly Hills