State Department Confirms Administration Readying Financial Aid to Israel

The State Department confirmed today that the Nixon administration is preparing a supplemental request to Congress for financial assistance to Israel and other countries. Department spokesman Robert J. McCloskey said the request would be presented “in the near future,” but cautioned that “final details and timing are still under consideration.” Other government sources indicated, however, that it was “quite possible” that the package would be presented to the lame duck session of Congress opening next Monday, and that it would recommend an outlay of $1 billion of which $500 million would be earmarked for Israel. The McCloskey statement was the first confirmation of such an aid request since reports last month that $450 million would be proposed for Israel. Sources said Oct. 4 that Israeli Finance Minister Pinhas Sapir had been promised such a sum during his visit here. The week before, the House of Representatives approved by 341-11 the broadening of aid to Israel beyond the scope of a Senate bill giving the President authority to send Israel aircraft or “equipment appropriate to protect such aircraft.” Israel has asked the U.S. for $1 billion in credit for the next two fiscal years.

According to government sources, the Administration is recommending that Israel get some 180 M-48 and M-60 tanks–the latter being the world’s most sophisticated, plus an assortment of Phantom jets, Shrike air-to-ground missiles and heavy artillery. The administration bill is also said to contain requests for arms aid to Jordan and Lebanon in the amounts of $40 million and $20 million respectively. Mr. McCloskey said he was not sure whether the funds in the supplemental request would cover new weapons or just those already provided or on order. It was also uncertain today whether the aid request would be handled by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, headed by Arkansas Democrat J.W. Fulbright, or by the Armed Services Committee, led by Mississippi Democrat John C. Stennis. Sen. Fulbright objected in September to a special section on aid to Israel in the military procurement authorization bill. Arguing on jurisdictional grounds, Sen. Fulbright offered a substitute proposal that was swamped 87-7. The Senate and the House of Representatives voted overwhelming approval of the original bill, which was signed by President Nixon.

On a related Issue, Mr. McCloskey was asked at his news briefing whether the State Department was thinking of sending American advisors to Israel along with the weaponry. Before he could reply a reporter exclaimed: “Israel doesn’t need any.” and a smiling McCloskey added. “It would be hard to improve on that answer.” The Deputy Assistant Secretary of State and department sources have stressed that the U.S. does not have military advisors in Israel, despite assertions to that effect by Yassir Arafat and other Arab spokesmen. The U.S. does, however, train Israeli–as well as Arab-pilots domestically, and has military attaches in Israel as it does in all friendly countries. On the matter of Arab-Israeli peace negotiations, Mr. McCloskey remarked: “I believe nobody has yet found a formula for resumption of the talks.” Pressed once again on the American definition of “rectification” of Egypt’s missile violations in the Suez Canal zone, the beleaguered State Department official moaned: “I’ve discussed that to the point where I can’t take it any further.”