On June 15,听1970, a group of twelve听refuseniks attempted and failed to hijack a plane听leaving the Soviet Union, in order to emigrate from the Soviet Union. They听were arrested at Smolny听Airfield in听the USSR and imprisoned. In 1980, Colorado听Senator Tilman Bishop and Colorado听Representative Jerry Kopel established a committee to release听the three remaining prisoners听(Iosif听Mendelevich, Yuri Federov, and Alexei听Murzhenko).听

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 correspondence听and documentation regarding the "Committee to Free the Leningrad Three."

Gift of Gerald H. Kopel in 1998.