Message to American Jewish Leaders About Recent Acts of Violence Against Soviet Facilities in the United States.
ALL DECENT and law-abiding Americans share your outrage at recent criminal acts of violence against Soviet facilities in this country. You may be certain also that this Administration, reflecting the traditional liberties upon which this country was founded, joins with you in urging freedom of emigration as explicitly provided in Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in its commitment to cultural and religious freedom at home and abroad.
But acts of violence and lawlessness such as those that have occurred in this country lately will not advance our common cause; they are, as you say, morally wrong and injure that very cause.
This Administration, in cooperation with local authorities, will use every means at its disposal to prevent such acts and to bring to justice those who perpetrate them.
RICHARD NIXON
Note: The message was released at San Clemente, Calif.
The text of a telegram from 73 Jewish leaders, released with the President's message, read as follows:
Dear Mr. President:
We are outraged by the bomb explosion outside the Soviet cultural building in Washington. Such irresponsible and criminal actions must be stopped. While we are united in our conviction that those Jews in the Soviet Union, who wish to emigrate should be allowed to do so, and those who wish to remain should be permitted religious and cultural freedom, we are equally united in our abhorrence of these acts of violence. American Jews strongly condemn such criminal acts for they are morally wrong and injure the cause of Soviet Jews and undermine the cause of democracy in America.
Richard Nixon, Message to American Jewish Leaders About Recent Acts of Violence Against Soviet Facilities in the United States. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/241109