ABSTRACT
My own personal history was vivid in my mind when it fell to my lot to help initiate the third major Jewish exodus from the Soviet Union, the first having taken place in the years following the Revolution, and the second in the 1970s. I wanted to make sure that I would not fail, as I had 45 years earlier in 1939 and 1940, when I had tried to extricate my parents from Europe. This chapter presents my eye-witness account of the circumstances which brought about that third exodus, based on my experience as US Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs.
