Sen. Kenneth Keating, New York Republican who is a co-sponsor of the Douglas-Keating amendment calling on the President to deny foreign aid to Arab states practicing discriminatory boycott and blockade procedures, announced today that if the Senate Foreign Relations committee does not strike out a nullifying clause added by Chairman J. W. Fulbright yesterday to this year’s bill “I certainly shall make such a motion on the Senate floor and I believe that Sen. Paul Douglas (Illinois Democrat) will support the motion.”
The wording of this year’s anti-bias clause was already under fire as a “watered down” version of the Douglas-Keating amendment when Sen. Fulbright added the nullifying terminology. Sen. Keating said “I am very much opposed to the language which was added to the foreign aid bill by the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.”
According to Sen. Keating “Congress should be on record in the strongest possible terms opposing use of foreign aid funds in any countries where, directly or indirectly, the money might be used for economic warfare, blockades, or boycotts against any other country also receiving assistance. This is not only common sense, so that our money is not thrown away, but also–and more important–a matter of principle on which we should not compromise.”
Sen. Keating said the language injected yesterday by Sen. Fulbright was “similar in substance to the amendment which he offered last year during the debate on the mutual security appropriations bill. It was defeated then on a roll call vote and it should be defeated again this year.”
Meanwhile, House Foreign Affairs committee sources said that not only was the “Fulbright nullification” unacceptable but also that the original clause adopted by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee was “a retreat from the stand of the House Foreign Affairs Committee on this matter.” The House committee made known it would seek not only elimination of the Fulbright insertion but a much stronger clause generally than that acted upon by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Rep. Leonard Farbstein, New York Democrat, said he questioned whether the United Arab Republic could be considered a “friendly” nation by America in the Fulbright paragraph inserted into the foreign aid bill “to avoid taking sides in any controversy between countries having friendly relations with the United States.”
A member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Rep. Farbstein said “if you have ‘friends’ like Col. Nasser, you don’t need any enemies.” He added that he would insist that his committee “stick to our guns” in advocating stronger language and rejecting “more water in the watered-down clause reported out today by the Senate committee.”
Sen. Jacob K. Javits, New York Republican, studied the wording added by Sen, Fulbright and said “this is an effort which should be stricken from the bill” but that he did not believe it would destroy the anti-boycott and anti-blockade stand of Congress because the President was duty-bound to enforce it nevertheless.
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.
