The United States will be represented at Golda Meir’s funeral tomorrow by an official delegation of 41 men and women led by President Carter’s mother, Mrs. Lillian Carter, as his personal representative.
The delegation members were recommended by the State Department in consultation with the White House, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency was authoritatively informed. Most of the members departed for Israel as a group from Andrews Air Force Base last night. The party will return here Wednesday night.
Sen. Jacob Javits (R.NY) who was traveling in Europe, Charlotte Jacobson, chairman of the World Zionist Organization-American Section, and Theodore Mann, chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organization, were making their own way to Israel, the State Department said.
Another member of the delegation, Sam Rothberg, general chairman of the Israel Band Organization, is already in Israel. Sen. Daniel Moynihan (D.NY) who was in Ireland, met the plane in Tarrejon, Spain, where it refueled.
The delegation includes Secretary of State Cyrus Vance and Mrs. Vance; the U.S. Ambassador to Israel Samuel Lewis and Mrs. Lewis; Ambassador at Large Alfred Atherton and Assistant Secretary of State Harold Sounders who are also in the Middle East seeking to induce Egypt and Israel to sign a peace treaty.
The delegation also includes Sens. Abraham Ribicoff (D.Conn.), Muriel Humphrey (D.Minn.), Reps. Clement Zablocki (D.Wis.), Sidney Yates (D.III.), Lee Hamilton (D.Ind.), Charles Rangel (D.NY), Stephen Solarz (D.NY), Benjamin Gilman (R.NY), former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, former UN Ambassador Arthur Goldberg, Senatorelect Carl Levin of Michigan and Robert Graham, Governor-elect of Florida.
Also, Mayor Henry Maier of Milwaukee; Edmund Edelman of Los Angeles; Sol Chaikin of New York; Methodist Bishop Joseph Coles of Atlanta; Irwin Field of Los Angeles; Max Kampelman of Washington; Isaiah Kenen of Washington; and Stanley Lowell, Rabbi Israel Miller, Rabbi Henry Siegman, Mrs. Rebecca Shulman and Mrs. Isaac Stern, all of New York; Gordon Martin Jr. of Boston, Marie Syrkin of Los Angeles, William Winn and Edward Sanders of Washington, and Mrs. Harriet Zimmerman of Atlanta.
TRIBUTES CONTINUE TO POUR IN
Meanwhile, tributes to Mrs. Meir continued today. Moynihan said she was “the most formidable female political leader of this century” who led her nation “with extraordinary courage in times of danger.” Ribicoff said that “in crucial times” Mrs. Meir’s “inspiration and common sense gave Israel the wisdom and leadership the country needed.”
House Speaker Thomas O’Neill (D.Mass.) said Mrs. Meir was “a wonderful woman and an inspiration to all who knew her.” Rep. Louis Stakes (D.Ohio), former chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, said “I have always held her in the highest regard” and “we all mourn her death.”
Gen. Aharon Yariv, former head of Israeli military intelligence and director of the Institute for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University, said at an Israel Bend Organization dinner honoring William H. Wynn, president of the Retail Clerks International Union, AFL-CIO, that Mrs. Meir’s strength as a leader had played a major role in convincing President Anwar Sadat of Egypt of the necessity of negotiating with Israel.
Jacques Torczyner, a member of the Jewish Agency and World Zionist Organization Executives and chairman of the World Union of General Zionists, delivered a eulogy to Mrs. Meir at the opening session of the Zionist Organization of America’s national executive committee meeting. He called Mrs. Meir a “strong partisan who never forgave and never forgot but who also had a great sense of humanity …. She was a great lady who served her people well.”
STATEMENTS FROM U.S. AND ABROAD
Other statements of tribute in this country were issued by Carl Glick, president, HIAS; Raymond Epstein, chairman, Public Affairs Committee of the Jewish United Fund of Metropolitan Chicago; Judah Shapiro, president, National Committee for Labor Israel; Ronald Shapiro, president, Baltimore Jewish Community Relations Council; and Bernard Harkavy, president, Americans for Progressive Israel-Hashomer Hatzair.
Statements from leaders abroad were issued by French President Valery Giscard d’Estaing; French Socialist opposition leader Francois Mitterand; former French Prime Minister Pierre Mendes-France; British Prime Minister Prime Minister James Callaghan; former British Prime Minister Harold Wilson, who will represent Britain at Mrs. Meir’s funeral tomorrow; West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt; former West German Chancellor Willy Brandt; Lord Fisher, president, Board of Deputies of British Jews; Dr. S. Levenberg, the Board’s vice-president; and pianist Artur Rubinstein.
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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.
