After some delay, the Reverend Graham notified them that he would meet with them. Their 31⁄2 years of raised and shattered hopes gave way once again to hope. As diligent and impassioned believers and fundamentalists, they looked forward with unrestrained hope to a meaningful meeting with one whose legendary reputation was well known, even in the Soviet Union.

To be blunt, they were disappointed. They felt used. Numerous advance people came to their cellar home demanding promises that religion and prayer would be the only items on the agenda; their political status could not be discussed. So in the name of freedom of religion, freedom of speech was waived, and Reverend Graham came to pray with his fellow Christians, but first the curtains to their only window had to be drawn.

There was no anger expressed by these people; they are accustomed to disappointment and manipulation. There was only sadness, a deep sadness that another hope had expired, followed by a lingering question about how many hopes were left.

And afterward, when Reverend Graham continued to speak out about how free people are to pray in the Soviet Union, their 4-year ordeal was in effect denied its reality. Distinguished members of this subcommittee, this tragedy cannot be denied by those with assumedly honorable intentions like Reverend Graham.

Where does that leave us and where do we go from here?

It was extremely clear as we met with refusenik after refusenik, that they are very concerned about the chance that their plight will be ignored, their persecution forgotten. It was equally clear that the smallest thing we in the States and you in our Congress do invigorates their hopes.

The day before we arrived with introduction letters from Senators Kennedy, Tsongas, and Congressman Frank. The Vashchenkos had received a letter from Congressman Frank, typed in Russian, updating what they and the Congress had recently done on the Pentecostalists' behalf. Coming as it did right after their meeting with Reverend Graham, it was the first uplifting message they had received. They showed it to us with a show of relief and gratitude. It meant a lot to them. So we want to tell you all that you should not think that your efforts here are without meaning or impact to you or to them; you should only step those efforts up. They need

us.

Additionally, we urge you to ask the President to make the issue of Soviet violations on human rights a priority in the upcoming grain deal negotiations. We urge support of the bill and urge you to join with Medical Mobilization for Soviet Jewry, Action for Soviet Jewry, the Anti-Defamation League, the Union of Councils for Soviet Jews, and SAVE, to continue to speak out for all those imprisoned in the Soviet Union, deprived of their freedoms and unable to speak out for themselves. For if we don't do it, it is an unfortunate truth that no one else will.

Thank you.

Mr. BONKER. Dr. Kent Hill.

STATEMENT OF KENT HILL, PROFESSOR OF RUSSIAN HISTORY, SEATTLE-PACIFIC UNIVERSITY

Mr. HILL. Today marks the beginning of the 50th month of confinement for members of the Vashchenko and Chmykhalov families in the American Embassy in Moscow. It is confinement dictated by fear-fear of the Soviets.

For 4 long years supporters in the West have struggled in vain to find that right combination of factors which will win their emigration and that of their families in Siberia.

I do not present to you today second-hand information about the lives of the Siberian Seven. I was in the Soviet Union when they arrived at the Embassy on June 27, 1978. I spent many weeks with them discussing the decades of harassment and mistreatment they have suffered at the hands of the Soviets because of their religious convictions. I translated over 250,000 words of documentation of their life stories: Accounts of church meetings violently broken up, children abducted from their parents for re-education, confinement in prisons and a psychiatric hospital, and even the mysterious death of a baby kidnaped by Soviet authorities. It is perhaps the most extensive account of religious persecution in the Soviet Union to have emerged in recent years.

Based on my translations, the English biographer John Pollock has written a simple narrative entitled "The Siberian Seven." They are not famous scientists or writers, nor are they Christian saints. They are fallible human beings trying desperately to achieve a meaningful measure of religious freedom. Yet they have continually been frustrated in their effort to emigrate, efforts which date back to the early sixties.

Why has their case dragged on so long in the American Embassy in Moscow? In addition to the obvious stubbornness of the Soviets to issue exit visas, there have been failures both on the part of the American Government and the Christian community in the West. For the first 21⁄2 years, American authorities were most reluctant to pursue the case vigorously. Efforts were made to minimize publicity as much as possible, restrict access by even Americans to see the Siberian Seven in the Embassy, and there were even some rather strenuous efforts to harass them into leaving the American compound. Happily, during the past year and half, there seems to have been a much more supportive attitude by our Government and Embassy officials toward the refugees.

I have met with Embassy personnel on two separate trips to Moscow in the past 8 months and am convinced that they are doing much of what they can under most difficult circumstances. However, the general failure of the Government to press in a public forum for the release of these unfortunate refugees has, in my view, retarded the settlement of this case.

There has been much discussion during the years of détente as to whether silent diplomacy is a better tack to pursue with the Soviets than a more aggressive public stance. An even cursory acquaintance with the fate of dissidents in the Soviet Union would validate the position that there is a strong correlation between the level of public exposure and outcry a given dissident receives in the West and his treatment at the hands of the Soviets.

If there is any single issue on which Soviet emigres and dissidents in the Soviet Union are willing to agree, it would probably be this one. Public pressure in the West is invariably credited with either their emigration or at the very least with a measure of protection while still in the Soviet Union.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Andrei Sakharov, Vladimir Bukovsky, Georgi Vins, to name just a few, have articulated just such a position. Nor should it be assumed that a clear public condemnation of violation of human rights is not reconcilable with quiet diplomacy. On the contrary, frequently quiet diplomacy only becomes effective in the wake of a loud outcry from the West.

In short, the U.S. Government has probably not played one of the most potent cards in its deck-the application of firm public pressure on the Soviets to resolve this issue quickly. Have we so quickly forgotten that the thousands of Jews who legally emigrated in the first half of the 1970's did so only after significant publicity in the West and the demonstration of our commitment is the form of trade legislation linked to concessions regarding emigration?

The second reason for our failure to resolve this issue is the lack of a concerted response from the Christian community in the West. The single most significant factor here has been the failure of American church leaders, both liberal and conservative, to speak out forcibly in defense of their Christian brethren behind the Iron Curtain.

Billy Graham's recent conduct in May is simply the most recent example of this very serious problem. Graham and some of his supporters are trying very hard in recent days to establish that Reverend Graham was misquoted and misinterpreted. But, in fact, the actual verified text of his remarks substantiate that his comments were ill-considered and invited misinterpretation. His failure was not so much because he sought to use silent diplomacy, but because he did not confine himself to "silent" diplomacy. It was what he said publicly which stirred up such a ruckus.

Graham amazed informed Westerners when he reported that he had found more religious freedom in the Soviet Union than he had expected. This does not speak highly of the level of his understanding of the religious situation in the Soviet Union. Even a person with an elementary knowledge of religion in the Soviet Union knows that in the registered churches a measure of religious freedom certainly does exist. But because Graham apparently had not understood what the situation was, he gave the impression to the world that the situation was not so bad as previously thought. The main point here, however, is not a recital of Reverend Graham's inadequacies as a diplomat or an informed leader but, rather, the tragic consequences of such a failure of leadership.

In all the flurry of activity since Graham returned to the West, the big issue has been Graham's credibility. In the shuffle, most have forgotten what the key issue should be; not Graham's reputation, but the plight of several million Christians in Communist countries who are deprived of considerable religious freedom. The tragedy here is that a good man, whose motives few if any would question, has so muddied the waters that for many an accurate picture of religious life in the Soviet Union has fallen by the wayside

once more. Certainly the Soviets are most pleased by such developments.

The failure of the Christian community is a two-pronged problem-it is an ignorance about the reality of the Soviet situation, and it is a failure to unite in a meaningful way to deal with that situation. Neither the far right nor the far left provide a complete description of religion in the Soviet Union. A complete account would include a discussion of both the registered churches and the unregistered, or underground bodies. It should be recognized that the 1977 Soviet Constitution does not even guarantee religious freedom in a Western democratic sense. Freedom of religious worship is guaranteed as is the freedom of antireligious propaganda.

First of all, note that it is only worship which is legal, that which occurs within the four walls of a registered church, not evangelizing or many other religious activities we take for granted in the West.

Second, there is no provision for religious propaganda, only for antireligious propaganda. The registered churches-Russian Orthodox, Baptist, Pentecostal, et cetera-understand and accept these restrictions. They also agree to a whole list of other restrictions and requirements as well: no Sunday school for children, certain scriptural texts will not be preached on, the religious leaders must be approved by the state, members will serve in the military, et cetera.

If a Christian belongs to a registered church and abides by these limitations, the authorities will likely leave him alone. There will be some disadvantages, however. Since the Soviets know who the registered church attendees are, it will mean that promotions at work and access to the top educational instruction are denied to them and their children. But this is a price that many are willing to pay. These people are, in the words of Pope John Paul II, essentially "second-class citizens". They may be second-class citizens, but at least they are not routinely shot and imprisoned.

The lot of the unregistered churches is a more difficult one. These churches are composed of members who feel that it is a violation of their religious convictions to accept Government restrictions which impede their opportunities to carry out God's command to evangelize and to involve fully their children in religious worship and training. Therefore, they are constrained to meet secretly. There are several million believers in this category in the Soviet Union, mainly Baptist and Pentecostal. The Soviets more actively harass these believers. If these Christians are fortunate, perhaps the authorities will simply fine the host of a meeting and the preacher. But when the screws of persecution are turned more tightly, the suffering can increase dramatically. Imprisonment, psychiatric hospitals, abduction of children, even death can be the fate of believers in this category.

The Siberian Seven and their families are unusually stubborn members of the underground church. They are not in trouble because of any particular Pentecostal article of faith but, rather, simply because their first priority is to God and not the state.

Persecution of Christians in the Soviet Union runs in cycles. It was relatively mild during the 1920's, much more severe in the 1930's and early 1940's, moderated significantly during World War

II, picked up again with Khrushchev in the early 1960's, and during recent months has intensified once more. Arrests are up in the past few months, and it is clear from a Pravda editorial of August 8, 1981, that the regime is gearing up for a new assault on religion. This fact and the less-than-cordial relations at present between the United States and the U.S.S.R. make them even less willing in the immediate future to make a concession regarding the Siberian Seven.

What is the prospect for the future regarding the Siberian Seven? At present, it does not look particularly hopeful. I was in Moscow during the last week of December when Lidia Vashchenko and her mother Augustina had embarked on their hunger strike. To many of us this was a clear indication that the protracted stay in the Embassy was taking its toll on the morale of the refugees. I returned to Moscow in February with Lynn Buzzard, executive director of Christian Legal Society, to discuss their plight with American Embassy authorities, and with Soviet governmental and church officials. We also met in Madrid with the Soviet and American delegations to the Helsinki talks on human rights. While we were in Moscow we visited Lidia Vashchenko in the Soviet hospital, where she had been taken by American authorities when permanent damage to her health was feared to be imminent. Shortly after our departure for the Helsinki talks in Madrid, Lidia was discharged from the Botkin Hospital. She elected to test the Soviets' good faith. As has been testified earlier, that proved to be a false hope.

What can the U.S. Government do to help: Continue to articulate a policy which makes it clear that the American Government will provide sanctuary to the remaining six Siberian Christians in the Moscow Embassy until a successful conclusion of their case is achieved; negotiate with the Soviets in a serious manner seeking a resolution which takes into account a reluctance by the Soviets to allow these Russians to emigrate directly from the American compound.

The proposal which Lynn Buzzard and I made to both American and Soviet authorities in Moscow this past February is that the Soviets allow the emigration of all members of the Vashchenko and Chmykhalov families at home in Siberia. Once these family members have safely arrived abroad, the six refugees in the Embassy have agreed to leave the Embassy and legally submit their own emigration requests in person through the appropriate Soviet authorities. This would allow the Soviets to save face by not backing down from their original demand that emigration would not be considered while the refugees were in the Embassy, while at the same time achieving the only reasonable solution to this diplomatic stalemate-emigration.

It is assumed that U.S. authorities will have procured, at least in private, assurances from Soviet officials regarding the safety and expeditious emgiration of the six who leave the American Embassy. The Congress might consider publicly endorsing such a proposal.

The Congress and the administration should publicly remind the Soviets of the international agreements which the U.S.S.R. has signed since the founding of the United Nations in the 1940's