President Nixon’s decision to mine all North Vietnamese ports was assailed today by the American Jewish Congress as “a dangerous risk of Armageddon.” In a statement on the eve of the organization’s national biennial convention, Rabbi Arthur J. Lelyveld of Cleveland, AJCongress national president, said Nixon’s action was “based on the fallacy that it is up to this country to shape the future of the Vietnam people. In what is essentially a war between brothers,” Rabbi Lelyveld said, “our obligation is to let the parties settle their differences themselves.”
The President’s “desperate gamble” carries with it the “grave peril that our de facto blockade will be met with counter-action and that escalation will inevitably follow,” Rabbi Lelyveld stated, adding, “At the same time, however, every American must welcome the President’s willingness to withdraw all US troops from Indo-China within four months of the return of American prisoners and the establishment of an internationally supervised cease-fire.” What is dismaying in this situation, he added, is the “fact that the President has accompanied this new offer with an act of military confrontation.”
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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.
