Jerry Kopel Collection
On June 15,Ìý1970, a group of twelveÌýrefuseniks attempted and failed to hijack a planeÌýleaving the Soviet Union, in order to emigrate from the Soviet Union. TheyÌýwere arrested at SmolnyÌýAirfield inÌýthe USSR and imprisoned. In 1980, ColoradoÌýSenator Tilman Bishop and ColoradoÌýRepresentative Jerry Kopel established a committee to releaseÌýthe three remaining prisonersÌý(IosifÌýMendelevich, Yuri Federov, and AlexeiÌýMurzhenko).Ìý
For more information on Rep. Kopel, see held in the Denver Public Library's Western History Collection, which cover Kopel's entire legislative career from 1964 to 1992.
The Jerry Kopel Collection contains correspondenceÌýand documentation regarding the "Committee to Free the Leningrad Three."
Gift of Gerald H. Kopel in 1998.