Open door policy
Sir: I am surprised that Russia has not taken advantage of the strange moral position over Vietnam taken by the Western governments arid 'their odd interpretation of the Helsinki Agreement. Western governments protest against the USSR for refusing to let certain of their people immigrate; they protest against the Vietnamese Government allowing 'the boat people' to go. They even demand that Vietnam close its frontiers. (And of course they protest against the invasion of Cambodia which put an end to the genocidal regime of the Khmer Rouge. 'Apparently it would have been acceptable if Hitler had confined his massacres to Germany and not crossed the frontier.) Why hasn't Russia taken this superb opportunity to grant visas to the West to anyone who asks for one? It is highly unlikely that there would be a mass immigration of the proletariat — and that in itself would be a good propaganda point. As for the intellectual dissidents, many like Solzhenitsyn have complained at being forced to leave their country, so perhaps the exodus of the middle class would not be very spectacular. But suppose even the exodus were spectacular . . . the Security Services of the West would be overwhelmed by the numbers they had to vet; our unemployment figures would soar, and what a triumph for, the USSR when the Western governments very soon had to plead to Russia to close her frontiers as now they plead to Vietnam?
Graham Greene Antibes
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