When They Come for Us, We'll Be Gone: The Epic Struggle to Save Soviet Jewry by Gal Beckerman
Authors: Gal Beckerman
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Chicago.
In the fall of 1963, as Lou Rosenblum and Herb Caron were setting up their small group in Cleveland, Goldberg started working with the two senators on getting Kennedy or his then secretary of state, Dean Rusk, to take up the issue. Javits had already warned Congress at the end of September that the time for a protest that was "loud and long" had come; what was needed was a "great surge of indignation—the determined protests not only of Jews but of all free peoples who treasure the rights of the individual." Rusk did meet with the three, but he thought it best that for the sake of Cold War diplomacy, any gripe with the Soviet Union should be expressed by Jewish leaders, not the State Department. Behind the scenes, Averell Harriman, the former ambassador to the Soviet Union who was then serving as assistant secretary of state, received a memo saying that the State Department's "position has been that it is difficult for our government to contribute to direct solution of the problem of minorities in a territory where a foreign government exercises sovereign control." But even more so, "the Department believes that formal U.S. Government representation to the Soviet Government would not be in the best interests of Soviet Jews. These representations could, in fact, antagonize the Soviet Government to the detriment of Soviet Jews."
It was apparent that they would get nowhere with the State Department, so Ribicoff and Goldberg decided to go directly to the president. If Kennedy was going to listen to anyone, it would be these two. Both men had helped the young senator from Massachusetts get elected and had been duly rewarded with high-profile posts (before winning his Senate seat, Ribicoff had been the secretary of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare). But the president couldn't do any better than Rusk. Only a year had passed since the Cuban missile crisis, and the last thing he wanted was to irritate Khrushchev. He suggested that a delegation of American businessmen headed for the Soviet Union could discreetly broach the subject. But this also seemed weak. Ribicoff and Goldberg asked the president if they had his permission to talk to the new Soviet ambassador, Anatoly Dobrynin, to arrange a visit to Moscow to address Khrushchev. Kennedy said he wouldn't stand in their way.
The subsequent four-hour meeting with Dobrynin on October 29 was even more frustrating. The Soviet ambassador, who had already proven himself during the missile crisis to be a smooth translator of Soviet policy for the American administration, categorically denied that anti-Semitism existed in the Soviet Union. Point by point, he refuted all charges of religious and cultural deprivation, and he said the accusation that economic trials were being used to execute Jews was baseless. "We are proud of our Jewish citizens," Dobrynin told them. "They are treated like everyone else." He would promise the Americans nothing.
A few weeks later, on November 19, Goldberg and Javits met in New York with the members of the powerful Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. The Supreme Court justice and the senator reported on their disappointing meeting with Dobrynin. Goldberg then presented the first tangible proposal: the Jewish leaders should organize a conference for the following spring that would gather together various Jewish groups in order to establish a unified plan. This would at least telegraph to the Soviets that the community was serious, and it might even put some pressure on the American government. He cautioned, though, that if they moved forward, they should be careful to avoid linking the problems of Soviet Jewry with the U.S.-Soviet relationship in any way. Like the Israelis, Goldberg wanted the protest to be carried out on a higher plane. As for the "troika," Goldberg promised they would keep pressuring the president to arrange a meeting with Khrushchev. Three days later in Dallas, Kennedy was
In the fall of 1963, as Lou Rosenblum and Herb Caron were setting up their small group in Cleveland, Goldberg started working with the two senators on getting Kennedy or his then secretary of state, Dean Rusk, to take up the issue. Javits had already warned Congress at the end of September that the time for a protest that was "loud and long" had come; what was needed was a "great surge of indignation—the determined protests not only of Jews but of all free peoples who treasure the rights of the individual." Rusk did meet with the three, but he thought it best that for the sake of Cold War diplomacy, any gripe with the Soviet Union should be expressed by Jewish leaders, not the State Department. Behind the scenes, Averell Harriman, the former ambassador to the Soviet Union who was then serving as assistant secretary of state, received a memo saying that the State Department's "position has been that it is difficult for our government to contribute to direct solution of the problem of minorities in a territory where a foreign government exercises sovereign control." But even more so, "the Department believes that formal U.S. Government representation to the Soviet Government would not be in the best interests of Soviet Jews. These representations could, in fact, antagonize the Soviet Government to the detriment of Soviet Jews."
It was apparent that they would get nowhere with the State Department, so Ribicoff and Goldberg decided to go directly to the president. If Kennedy was going to listen to anyone, it would be these two. Both men had helped the young senator from Massachusetts get elected and had been duly rewarded with high-profile posts (before winning his Senate seat, Ribicoff had been the secretary of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare). But the president couldn't do any better than Rusk. Only a year had passed since the Cuban missile crisis, and the last thing he wanted was to irritate Khrushchev. He suggested that a delegation of American businessmen headed for the Soviet Union could discreetly broach the subject. But this also seemed weak. Ribicoff and Goldberg asked the president if they had his permission to talk to the new Soviet ambassador, Anatoly Dobrynin, to arrange a visit to Moscow to address Khrushchev. Kennedy said he wouldn't stand in their way.
The subsequent four-hour meeting with Dobrynin on October 29 was even more frustrating. The Soviet ambassador, who had already proven himself during the missile crisis to be a smooth translator of Soviet policy for the American administration, categorically denied that anti-Semitism existed in the Soviet Union. Point by point, he refuted all charges of religious and cultural deprivation, and he said the accusation that economic trials were being used to execute Jews was baseless. "We are proud of our Jewish citizens," Dobrynin told them. "They are treated like everyone else." He would promise the Americans nothing.
A few weeks later, on November 19, Goldberg and Javits met in New York with the members of the powerful Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. The Supreme Court justice and the senator reported on their disappointing meeting with Dobrynin. Goldberg then presented the first tangible proposal: the Jewish leaders should organize a conference for the following spring that would gather together various Jewish groups in order to establish a unified plan. This would at least telegraph to the Soviets that the community was serious, and it might even put some pressure on the American government. He cautioned, though, that if they moved forward, they should be careful to avoid linking the problems of Soviet Jewry with the U.S.-Soviet relationship in any way. Like the Israelis, Goldberg wanted the protest to be carried out on a higher plane. As for the "troika," Goldberg promised they would keep pressuring the president to arrange a meeting with Khrushchev. Three days later in Dallas, Kennedy was
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