Before Soviet Jewry’s Happy Ending: The Cold War and America’s Long Debate Over Jackson-Vanik, 1976-1989

In both popular media and in mainstream academic scholarship, the Jackson-Vanik amendment—which linked Soviet-American trade relations to the question of Soviet Jewish emigration—is portrayed as a largely successful effort to facilitate Jewish emigration. This article sheds light on a revisionist perspective, focusing on the debates over the amendment’s effectiveness that took place between the amendment’s passage in Congress and the USSR’s final years. The research shows that the decline in emigration during the mid-1970s and the early 1980s led many Americans—including politicians, journalists, and Jewish leaders—to question the effectiveness of Jackson-Vanik’s hardline approach. In the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s, some called for the suspending the amendment or for granting the USSR a one-year waiver from Jackson-Vanik as a gesture of goodwill, but moderate voices were drowned out by Jewish activists who valued principle over pragmatism. Particular attention is paid to an alleged “missed opportunity” in 1979, a year when Soviet leaders boosted emigration and attempted to reach out to compromise with American Jewish leaders. Overall, this article argues that a more nuanced portrayed of the amendment’s legacy is required in light of the source material that it presents.