The B’nai B’rith Board of Governors decided today after an animated debate to solicit the views of its 4,000 chapters on a resolution endorsing proposals to extend amnesty to Vietnam war resisters. Concluding its annual meeting here, the Board also adopted a budget for B’nai B’rith’s national and international programs for 1972 totaling $17,613,135 or 3.39 percent more than for 1971.
The proposed resolution said that decreased American involvement in Vietnam “must be accompanied by a movement toward reconciliation” and urged the administration and Congress to take “necessary steps” to restore “to their place in American society” war resisters who had fled the United States or are serving prison terms “for their moral convictions.”
“The corrosive social effects of the war” the proposal said, “must be treated by appropriate community action in order to assure a reversal of the demoralizing effect which it has had on the American people.” Opponents of the resolution contended the resolution was “too loosely drawn” in that it did not specify possible forms of alternate service as a condition for amnesty. They also said that amnesty would be “unfair” to those who had served in Vietnam in view of “priority concerns” for liberating American war prisoners.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
