Soviets Recruiting Its Moslem Citizens for Military Service in Arab States

An Illinois Congressman said today that the Soviet Union was recruiting Moslem elements among its own citizens for military service in the Arab states. Rep. Roman C. Pucinski, addressing a Zionist Organization of America leadership conference here, warned that “the free world cannot let Israel become another Munich” and called for the immediate sale of at least 100 more Phantom jets to Israel to restore the military balance in the Middle East. Rep. Pucinski told the 800 ZOA leaders and members from the New York metropolitan area that the Soviet Union will soon proclaim the new “Brezhnev Doctrine” incorporating the Arab states into the Soviet sphere of influence. He asserted that “The United States has hard core intelligence that the Soviet Union is recruiting Soviet citizens of Moslem background in the provinces of Azerbaijan. Tadzhiristan and Turkistan as well as the other Soviet Republics that have large elements of Moslem population, and sending these Moslems for service into the Arab nations.” He claimed that “These Moslems are being infiltrated in Nasser’s Islamic Foreign Legion which he recently formed on the advice of the Kremlin and are also being trained to fly the more sophisticated Soviet jet fighters into the Middle East. This is the Soviet Union’s 20th century Trojan Horse and the Arab leaders are too naive to understand this.”