New Head of Israel’s Delegation to the U.N. Presents His Credentials

Ambassador Gideon Rafael, Israel’s new permanent representative and head of Mission here, presented his credentials to Secretary-General U Thant today, after which the two diplomats engaged in a conversation about current United Nations problems in general, including Arab-Israeli issues.

After his meeting with Mr. Thant, Ambassador Rafael was a guest of the United Nations Correspondents Association, at a reception where the representatives of all news media at the U.N, greeted the new envoy and engaged in informal talks about the issues he will face here as Israel’s top representative.

Mr. Rafael also told the newsmen that en-route from Israel to New York he visited the Soviet Union — from which he returned only yesterday — and conferred with top USSR Foreign Ministry officials including Deputy Foreign Ministry Vladimir Semionov. He said his talks with these officials were “realistic,” but would disclose no further details. He expressed the hope that the USSR delegation at the United Nations might be “more objective” in dealing with Israeli-Arab problems, and said “it would be helpful if there were an even distribution of friendship” to delegations here.

Concerning the arms race in the Middle East, he said: “As long as that race is on Israel is determined not to lag behind. We welcome any means to end that race. But there is always more than one party in a race. We did not start it.”