U.S. Grants Israel $450 Million in Long Term Credit for Current Fiscal Year

The United States has granted Israel easy long term credit in the amount of $450 million for the current fiscal year, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency learned today from highly reliable foreign sources. The sum is part of the $1 billion in credit that Israel has applied for the next two fiscal years. Promise of the loan was made to Finance Minister Pinhas Sapir during his recent visit to Washington, the sources said. Mr. Sapir also conferred with West Germany’s finance minister during his visit to Bonn on additional credits to Israel but details of those negotiations are not known. However, participants in a national Jewish conference in Frankfurt which Mr. Sapir addressed pledged to raise $15 million for Israel during the current fiscal year. (In Washington last week a $19.9 billion foreign military procurement bill authorizing the President to provide Israel with the aircraft and military equipment necessary to insure her future security, was passed by the House of Representatives by a vote of 341-11. The bill, which had emerged earlier from a House-Senate conference committee, broadened the scope of U.S. military aid to Israel contained in the original Senate version. The latter had given the President authority to transfer to Israel aircraft or “equipment appropriate to protect such aircraft.”)