Allegations that leading Israeli personages who served in Washington as diplomats were “espionage agents” and that Abba P. Schwartz, Administrator of the State Department Bureau of Security and Consular Affairs was linked with them — made by the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Internal Security — drew today an official denial from the State Department.
Mr. Schwartz, at the time he was law partner of Seymour Rubin — then representative of the American Jewish Committee — was alleged to have been “in frequent contact with individuals who were attached to the Israeli Intelligence Service in the United States.” During hearings just published by the subcommittee, Chief Counsel J.G. Sourwine raised questions about “former associations of Mr. Schwartz with espionage agents of a foreign government.”
The alleged “agents” were later identified as Eliahu Elath, president of Hebrew University in Jerusalem who was Israel’s first Ambassador in Washington; Theodor Kollek, Mayor-elect of Jerusalem, who served as Minister of the Israel Embassy here; the late Reuven Shiloah, former Minister of the Israel Embassy; Meir Shalit, prominent Israeli who was First Secretary of the embassy, and Eliashiv Ben-Horin, once Israeli First Secretary here and now Israeli Ambassador to Venezuela.
The attack on Mr. Schwartz emerged when the subcommittee singled out Mr. Schwartz in efforts to discredit the Department’s Security Division in connection with the dismissal of Otto Otepka. Mr. Otepka was dismissed for “conduct unbecoming a State Department officer” for furnishing unauthorized State Department information to the subcommittee.
REJECTS IMPLICATIONS AGAINST HIGH U.S. GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL
State Department spokesman Robert McCloskey said today that “implications in testimony on the Otepka testimony recently released by the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee that private associations by Abba P. Schwartz raise a security question are completely unwarranted.”
Mr. McCloskey said: “Mr. Schwartz’s ‘associations’ referred to in this testimony were with prominent citizens and diplomatic representatives of Israel, among them the Mayor-elect of Jerusalem, Theodor Kollek, former (diplomatic) Minister, and Dr. Eliahu Elath, president of Hebrew University in Jerusalem and first Israeli Ambassador to the United States. Mr. Schwartz’s contacts with these individuals were entirely social and professional and had nothing whatsoever to do with espionage or any kind of illegal activity. The State Department has full confidence in Mr. Schwartz’s reliability and integrity as demonstrated during his three years’ service as Administrator of the Bureau of Security and Counselor Affairs.”
The subcommittee action involving Mr. Schwartz was authorized by Chairman James O. Eastland, Mississippi Democrat, and Vice-Chairman Thomas J. Dodd, Connecticut Democrat, it was announced.
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