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Jewish War Veterans Back Eisenhower on Civil Rights Program

August 19, 1957
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Delegates to the 62nd annual national convention of the Jewish War Veterans of America were on record today as opposing the action of the U.S. Senate in tacking a provision for jury trials to the civil rights bill. The convention ended today.

Reaffirming support of the program recommended by the President’s Commission on Civil Rights, the delegates also hailed the “good work” being done by various states and organizations in furthering programs of legislation and education to end racial and religious discrimination.

“Appropriate officials” of the Eisenhower Administration were urged in another resolution “to take immediate steps to remedy the unwholesome and dangerous situation at the Dhahran Air Base” in Saudi Arabia.

SAUDI DEAL BRINGS ‘DISGRACE’ TO U.S.

The resolution cited provisions of the American lease on the base which require the United States Government to accept Saudi Arabian conditions for the exclusion from the base of American Jews, “thus making the United States discriminate between Americans on the basis of religious belief. ” The resolution urged action to eliminate such provisions.

Acceptance of this arrangement has brought “disgrace” on the United States, National Commander William Carmen, Newton, Mass., told the delegates Saturday night.

He promised that the JWV “will not rest until the uniform of the American serviceman is honored by the insignia it bears, regardless of who or what the creed or color may be of the man inside. “

He said that “we are grateful that at last the world has come to realize the chicanery, baselessness and danger to the free world that Nasser has come to be. “

In an earlier session Prof. Martin Dworkis, executive officer of the school of public administration and social service of New York University, said that “the heavyhanded and clumsy diplomatic blundering” of Secretary of State John Foster Dulles was directly responsible for the war in the Middle East last year.

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