Kissinger Says Administration Studies Show Israel’s Needs Are ‘not As Great As We Had Thought’

Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger said today that the Ford Administration’s opposition to foreign aid funding for the transitional quarter was not based “on foreign policy grounds” but “substantially on domestic grounds.” With respect to the additional $550 million in U.S. aid that Israel would receive for the three months between fiscal 1976 and fiscal 1977, Kissinger said that studies by the Administration led it to conclude that Israel’s needs are “not so great as we had thought.”

Kissinger made those statements in reply to questions by Sen. Daniel K. Inouye (D.Hawaii), chairman of the Senate Foreign Aid Subcommittee, who cited the difference between Ford’s threat to veto a foreign aid package containing transitional quarter funds and statements by the Secretary and some of his aides a few months ago supporting such funding.

Inouye reminded Kissinger that he had told the subcommittee last Nov. 20 that he hoped appropriations would be adopted for the transitional quarter and that Assistant Secretary of State Robert J. McCloskey, Kissinger’s aide for Congressional relations, wrote March 12 that if Congress should wish to appropriate transitional quarter funds, the State Department would not object if the funds were distributed proportionately among the recipient countries.

With respect to his own testimony last November, Kissinger said that he had given “my answer off the top of my head.” He said that in March he was “under the impression” that the Administration would not object to transitional quarter appropriations but would “acquiesce” If Congress voted it. He said that was also his impression when he told Senators he favored transitional quarter funding.

But now, Kissinger said, the Administration has “studied more projections” and concluded that Israel’s need is “not so great as we had thought.” He said the change of mind was “essentially” a difference of economic analysis, primarily between the U.S. government’s Office of Management of the Budget and the Israeli government. Kissinger added that the U.S. has no “legal obligation” to provide transitional quarter funding but it is a question of “real need.”

The Senate-House conference on the authorization bill voted yesterday to allow transitional quarter funding up to 25 percent of the amounts appropriated for each country for fiscal 1976. The Senate-House conferees on the appropriations bill were divided, however, with the House members balking at the extra funding. Congress will vote on both the authorization and appropriations measures when it reconvenes April 26 after the Easter recess.