Anderson, in Israel, Reiterates His Position on the PLO

John Anderson, the independent candidate for President of the United States, arrived in Israel today for a four-day visit his first stop on a five-nation tour which will also take him to Egypt, France, West Germany and Britain.

The Republican Congressman from Illinois was received with the protocol reserved for a possible future head of state. He was greeted at Ben Gurion Airport by Deputy Knesset Speaker Moshe Miron and U.S. Ambassador Samuel Lewis. In a prepared statement to reporters at the airport, he said:

“I have said consistently during the course of my campaign that it would continue to be my position that until the Palestine Liberation Organization has fully accepted two very important conditions — one is a total denunciation of the use of terror as a means of achieving political gains and the other is that it recognize Israel’s right to exist in secure and recognized borders — there will be no recognition or any contact by the American government with it.”

Anderson also said that he would favor “as a final act of the peace process, the U.S. government, our government, recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and move our Embassy there.”

Anderson and his party left the airport directly for Jerusalem. On his agenda are meetings with Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir, Deputy Premier Yigael Yadin and other government officials as well as leaders of the opposition, including Shimon Peres, chairman of the Labor Party. He is also scheduled to meet with former Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan, now an independent MK. He may visit Premier Menachem Begin in Hadassah Hospital.

He will visit an Air Force base in Sinai which Israel is to evacuate at the completion of its withdrawal from the peninsula next year. He will tour Jerusalem and visit the West Bank by air. He will leave Israel on Friday for a two-day visit to Cairo.