500 U.S. WRITERS ASK SOVIET TO FREE SINYAVSKY AND DANIEL

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01315R000400200001-8
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 12, 2004
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: January 22, 1968
• Content Type: NSPR

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Approved For Release 20 1/ : CIA-RDP88-01315R00040
O JA JSA 2 1968
500 U. S. Writers Ask Soviet.
To Free Sinyavshy and Daniel'
More than 500 American
authors, editors and publishers
have petitioned the Soviet
Government to grant amnesty
to Andrei D. Sinyavsky and
Suit M. IDnnlet, the two RUN-
Sion writers jailed in February,
.. 1966.
The petition, sponsored by
the American Center of the
P.E.N. Club, was sent last week
to the Soviet Embassy in
Washington for transmittal to
President Nikolai V. Podgorny.
P.E.N., a world organization of
poets, playwrights, editors, es-
sayists and novelists, has 80
chapters with about 8,000
members.'
The petition was the latest
,' and most extensive effort by
Western intellectuals to seek
the freedom of the two Rus-
sians, who were convicted on
charges of . having published
abroad materials judged hostile
to the Soviet regime. Mr. Sin-
? yavsky, who is 42, was sen-
ii
tenced to Seven years. at hard
labor and Mr. Daniel, also 42,
was sentenced to five years.
The two writers were ex-
eluded from the amnesty the
Soviet Government decreed for
political prisoners last Oct. even though repercussions of
the Sinyavsky-Daniel case con-
tiued to trouble the Soviet in-
tellectual community and to
?;'draw criticism from abroad.
The amnesty was issued as
an act of "socialist humanism"
in honor of the 50th anniver-
sary of the Bolshevik Revolu-
tion. The anniversary was cited
in the P.E.N.-sponsored peti-
tion as offering an occasion
for "a special amnesty" for Mr.
Sinyavsky and Mr. Daniel.
'Memorable Contribution'
"Let the' Soviet Government
now assert the right of its citi-
zens to speak and write free-
ly," the petition said. "By
.doing so at this time of cele-
bration, it will honor the tra-
' dition of its greatest creators
.and make a. memorable con-
tribution to. world under.
.
standing."
Although `.previous appeals
(by P.E.N. and other literary or-
ganizations were rebuffed by
the Soviet Union, Prof. Robert
Halsband, president of ' the
American Center of P.E.N., said
yesterday that he, felt that the
chances for leniency might
have improved because of,the
imprisonment earlier this
month of four young intellectu-
als accused of anti-Soviet ac-
tivity.
"it is quite possible that
after this example of tough-
ness, the Soviet Government
might be ready to contemplate
a humanitarian gesture," Mr.
Halsband said.
Mr. Halsband, a professor of
English literature at Columbia
University, said that the signers
of the petition were not con-
fined to P.E.N. members.
Included among the 555 peti-
tioners were such leading
spokesman for liberal causes
as Hannah Arendt, Daniel Bell,
Max Lerner and Arthur M.
Schlesinger Jr., as well as po-
litical conservatives such as
William F. Buckley Jr. and
Isaac Don Levine.
Some of the prominent writ-
ers who endorsed the petition
were: Conrad Aiken, Edward
Albee, Hortense Calisher, Paddy
Chayevsky, Babette Deutsch,
Allen Ginsberg, Eric Hoffer,
Christopher Isherwood, Bernard
Malamud, 'Herbert J. Muller,
Lewis Mumford, Reinhold Nie-
buhr, Chaim Potok, Upton Sin-
clair, Isaac Bashevis Singer,
William Styron, Louis Unter-
meyer, John Updike, Mark Van
Doren, Theodore H. White and
Herman Wouk.
Among the literary- critics
were Richard Ellman, Jason
Epstein, Eliot Fremont-Smith,
Elizabeth Janeway, Alfred Kaz-
in, Stanley Kunitz, Harry Levin,
Dwight Macdonald, Norman
Podhoretz and Samuel Yellen.
The publishers included
George Braziller., Frederick A.
Praeger, Barney Rosset of
Grove Press, Dagobert D. Runes
of Philosophical Library, Harry
Scherman,. president of the
Book-of-the-Month Club; Roger
W. Straus of Farrar, Straus &
Giroux; Arthur H. Thornhill Jr.
of Little, Browd, Frederick Un-
gar and Arthur W. Wang.
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Approved For Release 2005/01/12: CIA-RDP88-01315R000400200001-8