Johnston Says Prospects for Jordan River Development Plan “good”

Eric Johnston, President Eisenhower’s special envoy, told newsmen here yesterday that he thought prospects for adoption of the Johnston plan for development of the Jordan River were “very good.” He made this statement after a hasty oral report to Secretary of State John Foster Dulles to whom he was to submit a detailed written report on the results of his most recent visit to the Middle East to press for adoption of the plan.

(In a comment on a previous statement by Mr. Johnston that the Jordan development plan now stands “on the one-inch line,” the Christian Science Monitor noted that “into that long last inch however, are packed all the reasons why the Arabs hitherto have refused to make peace with Israel.” It added that Syria and Lebanon had “raised last-minute objections to the plan and that, to avoid the onus of turning it down, the Arab League had asked for more time to decide.”)

Mr. Johnston said he did not think the Arab States were stalling on consideration of his plan. He said the request for more time was a reasonable one since, in both The Lebanon and Syria, the present governments were less than two weeks old.