Bevin Attack on Truman Evokes Sharp Criticism in Senate by Democrats, Republicans

Foreign Minister Bevin’s attack on President Truman yesterday was sharply criticized in the Senate today by five Senators, both Democrats and Republicans.

They pointed out that the President’s original statement calling for admission of 100,000 Jewish refugoes into Palestine came fourteen months before the 1946 elections and even then, was a much more modest statement than pre-election commitments made by the British Labor Party.

Senator Owen Brewster, Republican of Maino, said that “the amazing statement of Mr. Bevin regarding Palestine apparently reveals the workings of a deeply distressed conscience. In seeking a sacrificial goat in America, Mr. Bevin looks too far afield. There should be honor even among politicians. Mr. Bevin should tell his constituency that his difficulties stem not from American politicans but from his own Labor Party.”

He expressed the suggestion that the Jews of New York – with reference to Bevin’s romarks about pressure by Jews in that city – are undoubtedly glad they were raised under the American Government rather than in Great Britain.

Senator Albon W. Barkley, Democrat of Kontucky, and minority leader of the Senate, expressed his regret that Bevin “for frustration or any other reason,” had made his statement about the President. He said that the United States has gone a long way to help Britain with her military, economic and social problems.

PALESTINE INTERESTS ALL NATIONS BECAUSE AFFECTS WORLD PEACE

All nations, he pointed out, have an interest in the Palestine problem because of its effects on world peace. “Never at any time,” he declared, “have any aspersions been cast on the head of the British Government,” even though at times the U.S. may have disagreed with British policies.

Senator Taft, Republican of Ohio, pointed out what he called “another inconsistency” in Bevin’s attack. He said that the partition plan proposed by the British Government was repudiated by Bevin in his speach yesterday. “Bevin has repudiated the basis for discussion with the Jewish Agency,” Taft declared.

Senator Hawks, Republican of New Jersey, expressed himself in faver of referring the Palestine matter to the U.N. “If the Jewish people cannot get a square deal there, then I ask what hope is there for any other minority group to get a square deal from the U.N,” he said. “I am not in faver of giving Jews any better treatment than any other minority, but I am in faver of keeping sacred obligations.”

Senator Warren Magnusson, Democrat of Washington, pointed out that American participation in the Angle-American Inquiry Committee represented American assumption of responsibility in the Palestine question.

Senator Claude Pepper, Democrat of Florida, declared that the action of Great Britain in referring the question of Palestine to the U.N. was “already a year late. It effects the whole world,” he said. “We have not tried to threw stones, but we have seen the wretched conditions of the people in the DP camps.”