Responding to intense Administration pressure, the House of Representatives today retreated from its position of prohibiting further United States agricultural aid shipments to Egypt.
The House voted 241-165 against instructing its conferees to hold out for the stronger House position, when the House members meet with Senate conferees to resolve the differences between the two branches of Congress on this issue. The Senate last week softened the original House-enacted ban by permitting the President to continue food shipments to Egypt if he determined such action was “in the national interest.”
Rep. Emanuel Celler, New York Democrat, who voted for the ban in the House, pleaded with his colleagues not to yield to pressure groups who “have been after members from the New York area.” He said “this is not the time for divided counsel.”
The House was voting on a proposal by Rep. Robert Michel, Illinois Republican, who authored the aid ban, to instruct its conferees to uphold the measure. He argued that U.S. aid to Egypt constituted “an indirect subsidy for international aggression.” He added: “Money extracted from the pockets of American taxpayers should not be used to support activities inimical to our interests.”
Rep. Leonard Farbstein, New York Democrat, who also is a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, urged retention of the aid prohibition. He said that the U.S. had achieved no results by assisting the Nasser regime in Egypt. Mr. Farbstein pleaded: “Let us not pursue a policy in the Middle East that could lead to a crisis like that in the Far East.” He cited Egyptian intervention in the Congo and Iran, and said “the majority of Americans will not tolerate insults and policies of Nasser any longer.”
Other members of the House rose to support the aid ban. Rep. Seymour Halpern, New York Republican, charged that U.S. assistance programs allow Nasser to divert his resources to aggression. Mr. Halpern called the State Department policy in the Middle East “utterly illogical,” and challenged the Department to show where the U.S. has made any headway in its Nasser-oriented policy.
Rep. William Fitts Ryan, New York Democrat, asserted that Nasser has continued to show his contempt for the government and people of the U.S.A. Minority Leader Gerald Ford, of Michigan, said the actions of Nasser warrant the action taken by the House of Representatives, and urged the House to stand its ground. Rep. Paul Findley, Illinois Republican, said that a rebuke to Nasser is long overdue. Rep. F. Bradford Morse, Massachusetts Republican, maintained that the U.S. not send assistance to aggressor nations, such as Egypt.
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.
