76-06-B7
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Soviet Visas
TranscriptIn order to leave the Soviet Union a Soviet citizen must have 900 Russian rubles for a visa and more courage than is normally allotted to humankind. I'll be right back. Russian law and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights fully entitled a citizen of the Soviet Union to an exit visa, meaning permission to leave there and live in another country. As a matter of fact, that Helsinki Pact they talked us into signing contains their pledge to let people live where they want to. Like yesterday's newspaper the Helsinki Pact should be used for wrapping garbage. Literally thousands of Soviet citizens are in concentration camps for trying to obtain an exit visa. For other thousands, the price for seeking a visa is automatic dismissal from their jobs. One of the latter is Ida Nubel, born in Russia in 1931. She is Jewish. In a letter to a Soviet, official she wrote, "I was born and raised here. I am part of this land, but I am also part of another land as well. A land that is the dream of my people. Ida Bubel wants to go to Israel, wants to be a part of making the ancient prophecies of her religion come true. When she first applied for a visa in 1971, she was fired from her job in Moscow's Institute of Planning and Production. The excuse for not granting her a visa was that she is privy to state secrets. Ida Nubel's job was studying the standards of hygiene in food shops and the control of infection in various foods. She says, "The greatest secrets I had access to were where rats and mice build their nests." For five years she's been without a job. In January 1975, she married Yule Brynde, who had obtained an exit visa before he met Ida. He was forced to leave Russia without her and now lives in Israel. She is constantly watched, followed and arrested for no reason whatsoever. In one fifteen day period, she was arrived in five times. In moscow arrests of this kind aren't what you see in Kojak on TV. Over the years she has been forcibly seized, thrown into dark basement rooms, often disrobed and beaten on the pretense of a weapon search, left for days without food, lying on a vermin infested floor. Ide Nubel is 45 years of age and has a history of heart trouble, but her medical card has been stamped Alcoholic which she is not. In the Soviet Union, that is standard practice for anyone they might want to bury in a mental institution. You'd think her own troubles would be all she had time for but then we don't know this frail little 45-year old lady. She is fondly referred to as the Little Angel by those imprisoned in labor camps. She sends them soup cubes, vitamins, medicines and letters to boost them physically and spiritually. One prisoner after his release said, "There is no woman on earth whom we value more." She has written countless letters to Brezhnev and other leaders of the workers paradise, not in her own behalf but begging for the freedom of others and their right to leave Russia. Why don't we write some letters in behalf of Ida Nubel to the Soviet Ambassador, the Soviet Embassy Washington D.C. It might worry him a little about detente to know how we feel. This is Ronald Reagan. Thanks for listening. |
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