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[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1804-E1805]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
THE PASSING OF CONGRESSMAN CHARLES VANIK
______
HON. ALCEE L. HASTINGS
of florida
in the house of representatives
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Madam Speaker, just before Congress returned
to session this week, our Nation lost a gentleman who served with
distinction in this body for 26 years and whose name became forever
associated with the human rights struggle in the former Soviet Union.
Congressman Charles Vanik served his constituents of the Cleveland,
OH, area from 1955 to 1981. In 1968, he voluntarily gave up his seat in
a district that had become primarily African-American to allow my good
friend and our former colleague, Mr. Louis Stokes, an opportunity to
serve in the Congress. It says something for Mr. Vanik's reputation as
a conscientious and hard-working Member that he could switch to a
nearby district, defeat a long-time incumbent of the other major party,
and return to Congress.
I did not know Mr. Vanik personally, but as Chairman of the Helsinki
Commission, I am particularly familiar with his contribution to the
struggle to allow Soviet Jews to leave the Soviet Union and emigrate to
Israel.
In the early 1970s, Soviet Jews who wished to emigrate to Israel
faced government harassment and even prison terms in one of the many
labor camps stretched along the eleven time zones of the Soviet Union.
This issue became especially acute in 1972 when the Soviet government
announced it would level an onerous ``education tax'' on Soviet Jews
who wished to emigrate. As Chairman of the Subcommittee on Trade of the
House Ways and Means Committee, Mr. Vanik stepped up to sponsor an
amendment to the Trade Reform Bill of 1974 introduced by Senator Henry
Jackson of Washington State. This amendment linked awarding Most
Favored Nation trade status to a nation's record on unhindered
emigration for its citizens. President Nixon and Mr. Kissinger didn't
like it, but it was a law whose time had come.
In the years that followed its passage, through detente and the tense
days of United States-Soviet relations in the early 1980s, the Jackson-
Vanik Amendment became a powerful symbol of the Congress' determination
to see that the Soviet Union lived up to the Helsinki Accords.
Today, Madam Speaker, the Cold War is over, the Soviet Union is
happily no more, Jewish citizens of Russia, the successor state to the
Soviet Union, are free to emigrate to Israel or any other nation that
will grant an entry visa.
[[Page E1805]]
Ironically, Congress has not yet fully ``graduated'' Russia from the
provisions of the Jackson-Vanik Amendment. I do hope that, regardless
of the many difficulties in relations with Russia that we are now
experiencing, we will be able to do so in the near future. I am sure
Chairman Vanik would agree with me.
Madam Speaker, although I was not acquainted with Chairman Vanik, I
know that he left a legacy of deep respect when he retired from this
august body. May we all serve our constituents, our Nation, and all
those with whom we share this planet as conscientiously as he did.
____________________
