SOVIET UNION NONDELIVERY OF INTERNATIONAL MONDAY, JULY 2, 1979 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON POST OFFICE AND CIVIL SERVICE, SUBCOMMITTEE ON INVESTIGATIONS, Washington, D.C. The subcommittee met at 9 a.m., pursuant to notice, in courtroom 15, U.S. Post Office and Court of Appeals, San Francisco, Calif., Hon. James M. Hanley (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. Mr. HANLEY. Today, we are conducting the third in a series of congressional hearings on the continued interruption by the Soviet Union of mail between its citizens and the citizens of the United States. As hearings on this subject held by this committee last year in New York and in Washington, D.C., indicated, a substantial volume of mail from the United States has not been received by addressees in the Soviet Union. Testimony received at these hearings outlined how this mail either "disappeared," or was opened and confiscated by Soviet officials. Moreover, individuals in the United States inquiring as to whether or not their letters were received have been subjected by the Soviet Union to inordinate delays in receiving information about this mail. In other cases, receipts for registered mail have been returned by the Soviets to American mailers bearing what was subsequently found to be the fraudulent signature of the addressee. All of these activities practiced by the Soviets are in clear contravention of international postal agreements to which the Soviet Union is a signatory, and I can only conclude that this continued interruption of mail poses a serious threat to the integrity of these international postal agreements. Our hearing today is designed to call further public attention to this critical problem and to provide those here on the west coast, who are monitoring the Soviet interruption of U.S. mail, the opportunity to present their findings to this committee. With us today is my colleague from New York, Congressman Ben Gilman. Congressman Gilman has been among those taking the lead in seeking to resolve this serious problem. He has met with International Postal Union officials and with the Soviet officials on this matter, has brought the subject of Soviet mail interruption before the 1977 Belgrade Conference reviewing the Helsinki Final Act, and has provided our committee with a thorough report documenting his findings. I would now like to introduce my very distinguished colleague from New York, Congressman Ben Gilman. (1) STATEMENT OF BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, A MEMBER OF CONGRESS Mr. GILMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I welcome this opportunity to join in this important oversight hearing on the continuing problem of Soviet interruption of U.S. mail. I wish also to commend you for your longstanding interest, Mr. Chairman, in seeking a solution to the Soviet Union's systematic interruption of thousands of pieces of registered mail, including private communications, packages, and scientific and cultural materials. Hearings that we conducted on this issue last year in New York City and in Washington, D.C., provided us with firm documentation on and valuable insight into the extent of the Soviet Union's deliberate undertaking, in contravention of international postal covenants and other international agreements in which it is a signatory, to impede the flow of mail to not only the Soviet Jewish community in general but to activists, to members of other ethnic communities, and to scientists and artists within the Soviet Union. By holding this hearing in San Francisco today, you are providing those here on the west coast who have been monitoring Soviet mail interruption the opportunity to provide our committee with their valuable testimony on this most critical problem. As you know, I have introduced House Concurrent Resolution 58, of which our distinguished chairman, the gentleman from New York, Mr. Hanley, is a cosponsor, urging the President to formally protest to the Soviet Union its interruption of mail, and directing U.S. Representatives to bring the matter of Soviet mail interruption before the Universal Postal Union's Congress to be convened later this year in Brazil. As I indicated in my 1977 report to this committee on this problem, during a 7-month period during 1976, some 1,700 return receipts were not received by Americans sending registered mail to the Soviet Union. Figures recently supplied by the U.S. Postal Service reveal that the total number of inquiries on registered mail to the Soviet Union was 2,302 in 1978, 2,859 in 1977, and 2,936 in 1976. I am confident that today's hearing will contribute substantially to our committee's effort to document and to more fully understand the extent and nature of Soviet mail interruption and should also assist us at the time when we consider the appropriate legislative remedy to this serious matter. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. HANLEY. Thank you, Mr. Gilman. And our first witness today, representing the Office of International Postal Affairs of the U.S. Postal Service, Mr. Mike Regan. Mr. Regan? Mr. Regan, we're delighted to have you with us this morning. If, for the purposes of the record, you would be good enough to introduce your associate. STATEMENT OF MIKE REGAN, OFFICE OF INTERNATIONAL POSTAL AFFAIRS, USPS Mr. REGAN. Mr. Chairman, subcommittee members, I am Michael Regan, Manager of the International Relations Branch, Office of International Postal Affairs. The Office of International Postal Affairs is responsible for representing the Postal Service in the Universal Postal Union. With me is Mr. Darwin Sharp, Manager of the Retail Branch of Customer Services at the Western Region of the U.S. Postal Service. The retail branch is responsible for the administration of the over-thecounter services of the Postal Service here in the western region. Mr. HANLEY. We're delighted to have you with us, sir. Mr. REGAN. I am pleased to appear before this subcommittee in response to your request to the Postal Service to report on the status of mail service to the Soviet Union and on the views of the Postal Service on House Concurrent Resolution 58. As you know, the Postal Service continues to receive numerous complaints about mail service with the Soviet Union. These complaints may be summarized as follows: First: The Soviet Union returns mail which the sender in the United States for one reason or another believes could and should have been delivered. Second: Soviet authorities seize mail, and mailers subsequently claim the contents of this mail are not in violation of any known or published prohibition. Third: The sender claims he has reason to believe mail was not delivered, despite the Soviet Union's report that it was delivered. Fourth: Mailers in the United States complain that "advice of delivery" forms are returned without being properly completed, that is, they are unsigned or bear the signature of someone other than the addressee in the block of the form reserved for the addressee's signature. Fifth: Mailers complain about the length of time that it takes to get a response to an inquiry. With respect to the first three categories of complaints, the situation has not changed substantially since the Postal Service presented testimony to this subcommittee at the hearing of last July. With regard to the fourth category of complaints, the Soviet treatment of "advice of delivery" forms has improved to the extent that many of them are now being returned properly completed, although they usually bear the signature of someone other than the addressee. This is a source of misunderstanding because in the U.S. domestic service it is possible in many circumstances for the sender to require delivery to the addressee, but in the international registered service to the Soviet Union such signatures are not legally required even when the sender has purchased and the Soviet Union provides a registered delivery service. With respect to the fifth category of complaints, the Soviet Union has improved its performance both in terms of the number of inquiries to which it responds and in terms of the timeliness of its response. Now that the responses are forthcoming and timely, however, the remaining difficulty is with the adequacy and accuracy of the information provided in the inquiry responses. The Postal Service has taken the following actions regarding mail service to the Soviet Union since the hearing of last July. First: The Postal Service has continued its efforts to bring complaints to the attention of the Soviet Union and to persuade Soviet officials to take steps to insure the proper treatment of deliverable mail, both through the exchange of correspondence with the Soviet Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications and through direct contacts with Soviet postal officials. The most recent example of such a direct contact with Soviet postal authorities occurred in March 1979, during this year's executive council. At this meeting, Mr. Stock, the Assistant Postmaster General for International Postal Affairs, provided several recent examples of letters sent from thhe U.S. Postal Service to the Soviet Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications to which the ministry had failed to respond. In one of these unanswered letters, Soviet postal authorities were advised of a complaint that a picture calendar and some original paintings by a 3-year-old child had been seized because they were alleged to be in violation of Soviet prohibitions. In a second letter, Soviet postal authorities were advised of a complaint from Congressman Charles Thone regarding the seizure of two books, one entitled "Passover; Popular History of Jewish Civilization," and the other entitled "Ring Around the Talis." In a third letter, Soviet postal authorities were advised of a complaint regarding the seizure of six books on Jewish culture and history which had been sent to six different families which the sender had met while in the Soviet Union the previous summer. The books were entitled "Minor and Modern Festivals," "Family," "The Synagogue," "Passover," "Hassidim," and "Marriage." The sender also advised the Postal Service that she had taken these same books into the Soviet Union the previous summer and that Soviet Customs officials had examined these books but did not seize them or indicate that they were in violation of Soviet laws. In a fourth letter, Soviet postal authorities were advised of a complaint regarding the seizure of two books which Soviet authorities had permitted to be displayed at the First Moscow International Book Fair in September 1977. These books were "Great Jewish Thinkers of the Twentieth Century," and "Contemporary Jewish Thought." In a fifth letter the U.S. Postal Service informed Soviet postal authorities of a mailer's complaint that he had sent a registered letter to his brother inviting him to America, that a Soviet official had signed a response to an inquiry which claimed that the letter had been delivered, but that Soviet postal authorities had also told his brother that the letter had been lost. In a sixth letter, Soviet postal authorities were advised of a complaint from Beth Tikvah B'nai Jeshburn, a synagogue in Philadelphia, regarding a Soviet response to an inquiry which claimed the delivery of the registered item in question, and the subsequent return of the same item with the endorsement "Retour Inconnu" which means "Return, Addressee Unknown." The sender maintained that the address was current and correct, cited the Soviet reply |