Senator Sees ‘mischief’ Resulting from Eec’s Mideast Declaration

Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R Ind.), a potential Vice Presidential nominee as Ronald Reagan’s running mate in the Presidential election, has decried Friday’s “Declaration of Venice” by the European Economic Community as being “not a constructive step” and certain to cause “a lot of mischief” for the United States, Egypt and Israel.

Appearing on the CBS television program “Face the Nation” yesterday, Lugar responded to a question about the European drive to get the PLO into the Middle Eastern negotiations, by saying: “It’s not a constructive step and it could only have occurred if the Europeans had come to a conclusion that (President) Carter was a disaster and that’s the conclusion they’ve come to. In other words, that there is nothing going with this Administration that is going to change the Middle East or anything else.

“Now having come to that conclusion, “Lugar added, “they (the Europeans) have quietly gotten their own foreign policy together and that’s going to cause a lot of mischief not only for the Egyptians the Israelis and everybody else, but certainly for us.”

Lugar, who is a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was asked whether “the basic idea of the West Europeans that the PLO should in same way be involved in the negations is correct.” Lugar replied: “Oh, I don’t think so. I would guess that the problems finally come down with Egypt and Israel, hopefully with Jordan. “The visit of Jordan’s King Hussein to Washington this week “is critically important” to “fashion something in the Camp David mold that leads to a degree of self-government by people who are living in the West Bank area and adjacent circumstances, but that’s a long way from getting into the PLO.”

SISCO SAYS ONLY U.S. HAS INFLUENCE

(Former Undersecretary of State Joseph Sisco interviewed on a Dutch television station, said that Europe is less in a position to influence either side in the Mideast than the U.S. Only the U.S. is acceptable to both Israel and the Arabs, he said.

(Sisco stressed that self-determination is a matter of negotiations for both sides. “In the last analysis it is the parties themselves that have to give content to the Camp David agreement, “he said. “Neither the United States nor Europe must take steps that are prejudicial to Camp David.”)