Calls for the dismissal of U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Andrew Young, for his meeting with the Palestine Liberation Organization’s representative at the UN, Zehadi Labib Terzi, mounted here and in Washington today.
Meanwhile, there were more shock waves in Washington today as the State Department disclosed that Milion Wolf, the American Ambassador to Austria, had separate meetings with three PLO officials in Austria. (See related story.)
Rabbi Joseph Sternstein, president of the American Zionist Federation, in a sharply worded telegram to President Carter, said that “only the dismissal of Ambassador Young can restore confidence in your Administration.” Sternstein’s telegram also declared:
“Ambassador Young’s discussion with a PLO official, itself a flagrant breach of American policy, was severely compounded by his egregious lie concerning the content of that encounter. Not only has this reprehensible incident done irreparable damage to the progress of the Mideast peace negotiations, but has damaged American credibility in the eyes of Israel and all our allies.”
The American Jewish community, Sternstein continued, “is waiting for your action. Mere expressions of displeasure are hardly suitable discipline for such an impropriety. Your credibility and the credibility of American public policy has been placed on the line.”
Bertram Gold, executive vice president of the American Jewish Committee, issued a statement in which he said: “If Andrew Young indeed did talk with the PLO on his own, he should be fired. But if he did this on instructions from the State Department, then President Carter should take a hard look at his State Department.”
HITS STATE DEPARTMENT APPEASEMENT
Theodore Mann, chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, said Young’s meeting “in contravention of President Carter’s directions is deplorable. The meeting, however, fits into a larger State Department pattern and that is what requires President Carter’s immediate attention.”
Mann recalled that Carter “has likened the PLO to the Nazis, stating repeatedly that the United States has no direct or indirect contact with it. But that has not stopped the State Department from attempting to appease the PLO by finding language for a UN Security Council resolution which will satisfy this terrorist group. Appeasement of assassins will never bring peace to the Mideast. We know appeasement is not President Carter’s policy. We are less confident that it is not the State Department’s policy.”
Bernice Tannenbaum, president of Hadassah, sent Carter a telegram from Chicago, where she is preparing for Hadassah’s 65th annual national convention beginning Sunday, charging that Young’s meeting with the PLO official “Is a betrayal of oft repeated assurances by your Administration to Israel and the American people.” Claiming that the President bears the responsibility for his appointees, Mrs. Tannenbaum urged Carter to “take clear and unequivocal steps to repudiate Young’s actions as well as any future cause that would legitimize the PLO.”
NOT AN ISOLATED INCIDENT
Ivan Novick, president of the Zionist Organization of America, charged that the Young-PLO representative’s meeting “was no isolated incident, but was rather part of a continuing thrust by the Administration to find an accommodation with the PLO. This has been further reinforced by the revelation that another United States official, the U.S. Ambassador to Austria, also had unauthorized meetings with PLO representatives.”
Howard Squadron, president of the American Jewish Congress, stated that “Young’s clandestine meeting with a PLO representative and his attempts to cover it up are an embarrassment to this country. Inevitably, such acts call into question either the sincerity of America’s pledges or the ability of this Administration to make them stick. Even more serious than Andrew Young’s indiscretions and deceptions is the fundamental uncertainty as to where this country stands.”
Maxwell Greenberg, national chairman of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, characterized Young’s action as “an obstacle to peace.” In light of Young’s “repeated disregard of Administration policy and in light of his misleading early reports, we believe it important that the Administration take appropriate action to discipline the Ambassador,” Greenberg added.
BYRD AND DOLE CRITICIZE YOUNG
In Washington today, Senators Robert Byrd (D. W.VA.) and Robert Dale (R. Kan.) called for the removal of Young as UN Ambassador. “I respectfully urge that if Mr. Young is to remain in a high government position, that it be in a less sensitive post,” Byrd declared in a statement issued here. He said that Young “compounded the situation by being less than truthful.” Byrd is Senate Majority Leader.
Dole, Republican Vice Presidential candidate in 1976, also criticized Young for declining initially to disclose the whole truth of his meeting with Terzi. “President Carter made a promise in 1976 to fire any Cabinet officer who did not level with the American people,” Dole said. “I firmly believe the time has come for Ambassador Young to step aside.”
Young himself conceded in New York last night that he had not given the State Department the whole truth about his meeting with Terzi on July 26. Speaking with reporters Young acknowledged that he had told State Department officials at first that his meeting with Terzi, at the home of the Kuwaiti Ambassador to the UN, had been an accidental encounter and that they only exchanged social amenities. But, he said, “that was not a lie, it was not the whole truth.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
