The 22-member California House Democratic Delegation, the largest in Congress today, declared that it was unanimously opposed to the sale of AWACS and the F-15 enhancement package to Saudi Arabia and urged the House Foreign Affairs Committee to hold hearings on the proposed sale “as soon as feasible.”
The delegation sent a letter to President Reagan saying it believed the sale of AWACS to the Saudis “would be profoundly contrary to the interests of the United States,” Another letter was sent to Rep. Clement Zablocki, (D. Wis.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, urging him to schedule the meetings.
Both letters were signed by all 22 California Democrats in the House and initiated by Reps. Tom Lantos, Don Edwards and Mervyn Dymally. Edwards is chairman of the Democratic group and Lantos and Dymally are members of the Foreign Relations Committee.
At a press conference today, the first of weekly sessions the delegation plans to hold on issues facing Congress, Lantos stressed that although the fight appears to be concentrating in the Senate he believes that it is close in both chambers of Congress. He conceded that there is a better chance that the sale will be blocked in the Democratic-controlled House than in the Republican-controlled Senate.
But Lantos stressed that if the House acts first to reject the sale, it would be “a very critical strategic move,” since “some of the weak sisters in the Senate” mightfall into line and vote against the sale to the Saudis.
The letter to Zablocki noted that when the 62 F-15s were sold to Saudi Arabia in 1978, “early Senate action rendered irrelevant the position of the House of
Representatives on that important question. We believe it is vital to the institutional role of the House in the field of foreign affiars that both the Committee and the House act promptly so that their voices will be heard throughout the nation and the world.”
Lantos told the press conference that although the threat the sale poses to Israel has been stressed, the major reason for the “united, firm unequivocal opposition” of the California group to the sale was their belief that the “national interests of the United States is adversely affected by this ill advised proposal” because the sale would put the most sophisticated weapons the U.S. has in the hands of an “unstable regime.” Lantos stressed that the Saudis do not need to buy the five AWACS in order to guard their oilfields because they are now guarded 24 hours a day by the four U.S. AWACS which have been there for the last year.
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