Newspaper reports alleging that there was an exchange of letters recently between Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and Israel’s Prime Minister David Ben Gurion were denied here today by the Israel Embassy. A spokesman for the Embassy declared that “in recent weeks, there was no exchange of letters between Mr. Ben Gurion and Mr. Dulles.”
According to the newspaper reports, Mr. Dulles had supposedly “assured” Mr. Ben Gurion that, in the absence of a formal treaty between the U.S.A. and Israel, “substance and not form” would be the essence of American policy toward Israel. Mr. Ben Gurion is reported to have sought an automatic guarantee from this country for help in case of an attack by an Arab country. Mr. Dulles was reported, in the exchange now denied by Israel’s Embassy here, to have informed Mr. Ben Gurion that there was no immediate prospect for an American-Israeli treaty.
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.
