Beam Gets No Clarification from Soviet Official About Russian Role in Egypt

No clarification about reports of Soviet pilots flying operational missions in Egypt came out of talks in Moscow yesterday between Jacob Beam, U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union, and Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Vinagraboe, State Department spokesman Robert McCloskey reported today. The Department had announced yesterday that the American envoy would raise the question, Mr. McCloskey disclosed the lack of Soviet response in response to a reporter’s question at a news briefing. He said that the talks added nothing to the statement made by Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin at a press conference in Moscow on Monday, at which the Premier virtually acknowledged that Soviet pilots were involved in such missions. State Department sources said that the talks were considered unsatisfactory, adding that the envoy did not protest Soviet policy in the Middle East, only asking for an explanation. Informed sources here also reported that the Nixon administration was re-considering Israel’s request for additional Phantom jets and Sky hawks. This was interpreted to mean that the Nixon administration was moving toward a decision on the request, following President Nixon’s statement last week that the situation was being reviewed in the light of the reports of the Soviet pilot involvement. Sources said the final decision will depend on the outcome of talks now underway between the Four Powers in New York and current efforts by American diplomats to clarify Soviet intentions in the Middle East.

(New York Times correspondent C.L. Sulzberger reported from Paris today that the French government believes that “patient initiatives to calm down the Middle East have been tragically set back” by the American invasion of Cambodia. Mr. Sulzberger said that right or wrong, the French felt that slow progress was being made toward political settlements both in Southeast Asia and the Middle East. He said the French hopefulness that a peaceful accord could eventually be reached in the Mideast was based on the belief that the Four Powers–U.S. Russia. Britain and France–were inching toward an agreement and that “Cairo’s reaction to the latest U.S. peace plan, presented by Assistant Secretary Sisco, was not viewed as entirely negative.”) (A U.S. State Department source in New York told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency today that Mr. Sisco had only repeated the peace proposals outlined by Secretary of State William P. Rogers last year, when Mr. Sisco visited Cairo last month. “We are not aware of any new peace proposals,” he said.)