Correspondents' Correspondence

...In answer to the protests against the Jewish tax that emerged on Capitol Hill, the Russians suggested that "certain circles" in the United States were interfering in their internal affairs and hoping to block the Soviet-American detente signaled by President Nixon's spring visit to Moscow...

...When the education tax was published here in December, after a six-month delay, it contained a few loopholes that some Western observers considered a gesture of conciliation toward the American Congress...

...Consequently, it is difficult to avoid the suspicion that the move is designed, at least partially, to enlarge the "emerging Republican majority" by aggravating racial/ethnic tensions and widening the split among liberals...

...Senator Henry M. Jackson (D.-Wash...

...During the 1972 campaign it became clear that a number of Nixon's chief supporters in the black community were black promoters (or "entrepreneurs") who had been promoted by government loans and grants...

...In Washington, though, the very publication of the tax act was seen as a hardening of the Soviet position, and its final form did little to mollify U.S...

...Their policies have: (1) increased hostilities between racial and ethnic groups in American society...

...The President can scarcely claim that the increased expenditures for these agencies are merely accidental or unintended—especially since he has reorganized the Office of Management and Budget for the stated purpose of using budgeting as a tool for enforcing Executive policy priorities...

...USSR officials insisted that it was perfectly normal for any state to regain the costs of educating its citizens...

...Anxious to gain Congressional approval of most-favored-nation status-which would reduce present restrictive tariffs on Soviet goods to the lowest current U.S...

...with the support of 75 other Senators, has introduced an amendment to the Trade Reform Act of 1973 (see box, page 4) that would deny trade benefits to countries that impose more than a nominal emigration fee...

...If the Soviet leaders are letting Jews depart at the moment who were previously denied exit visas, dissidents here feel, they are doing so for pragmatic reasons-as a trade-off for trade.-Mark Hopkins Budgetary Politics Cambridge—That social spending fares ill in the Nixon budget is hardly a secret...

...Despite the Soviet gestures and the Administration's position, the suspicion persists in Congress that the Kremlin is playing hot and cold with the education tax, and that once Moscow got the trade agreement, the tax would be fully enforced again...

...Echoing the private remarks of USSR officials, they are also suggesting that too much publicity about the Soviet Jews will nurture an anti-Semitism that is already on the rise among Russians, Ukrainians and others inside the Soviet Union...

...Yet two types of "social" programs have not only not been axed, but have actually been slated by the President for dramatically larger allocations in the coming year...

...rates-as well as American export credits, leaders in the Kremlin have been forced to weigh foreign policy and domestic interests against the value of the trade pact...

...Once the Presidential campaign was over, however, the Russians began to realize that the opposition in the Senate and House was serious, and that it was creating difficulties for them...

...What about the allocations for furthering "black capitalism," increased at a time when manpower training and emergency job creation have been butchered...

...Little noticed in the budget hubbub has been the Administration's request that Congress increase funds for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) from $29.7 to $43 million, and for the offices of contract compliance of Federal agencies from $28.2 to $34.2 million...

...Even now, Soviet civil liberties activists observe, officials do not make life easy for Jews wishing to leave...

...2) encouraged a divisive debate within the liberal community...

...Trading for Jews Moscow-Last fall, Soviet officials were asking if American electoral politics wasn't the real reason behind Congress' threat to block a U.S.-Soviet trade agreement as long as an education tax continued to be levied on emigrating Soviet Jews...

...In addition, they note, other Soviet nationalities started to express resentment over the special emigration privileges granted to Jews...

...President Nixon underlined the Administration's stand by declaring his opposition to linking Jewish emigration with trade...

...With the additional money the President could continue to publicly denounce quotas while Budget Director Roy Ash continued to strengthen the quota-imposing EEOC and offices of contract compliance...

...The EEOC and the offices of contract compliance, however, are widely recognized as quota-enforcing bureaus...

...Since mid-March the tax payment has been waived for some departing Jews and used to prevent the emigration of others...

...Again, one suspects that perhaps the Administration feels it can co-opt some articulate potential troublemakers, and thus avoid the more expensive task of dealing with persistent black poverty.—Steven Kelman...

...Both Soviet Party leader Leonid Brezhnev and President Nixon have invested their prestige in the easing of Soviet-American tensions...

...More than trade is involved in the current maneuvering...

...legislators...

...Similarly, the Office of Minority Business Enterprise has been scheduled at $65.8 million, up from $42.9 million, while $562 million is being sought for Small Business Administration loans to minorities, as compared with $434 million last year...

...As a result, a good deal of discussion has taken place between Soviet and American officials, and the two countries seem to have a tacit understanding to work together on the problem...

...But the more Soviet Jews flowed into Israel, authorities here say, the more they had to explain to the Egyptians why they were supplying skilled forces to the Arabs' enemy...

...Administration spokesmen are pointing out, in support of "quiet diplomacy," that 30.000 Soviet Jews were given exit visas last year and emigration this year is continuing at a rate of approximately 3,500 a month...

...The number of Jews permitted to emigrate from the USSR began rising two to three years ago...

...Faced with this persistent antagonism, the Russians planted a story in an Israeli newspaper reporting that the law would not be rescinded, but neither would it be enforced...

...If the trade agreement fails to clear Congress, it could set off political Shockwaves touching negotiations in Helsinki and Vienna on European security and troop reductions...

...In his first public statement concerning most-favored-nation status for the Russians, contained in his April 10 message to Congress on trade reform...

...Those who apply for exit visas are subjected to humiliating verbal abuse, lose their jobs in many instances and are regarded hostilely by others...

...Congress, though, remains adamant...

...and (3) allowed Richard Nixon to appear to be the supporter of the merit system—as opposed to the wild-eyed McGovernites who were said to be advocating "discrimination in reverse...

...Last summer the Soviet Union formally adopted an exorbitant sliding-scale education tax that was already being applied, in an obvious effort to discourage the growing Jewish exodus...