Robert Lipshutz, President-elect Jimmy Carter’s designated White House Counsel, told a B’nai B’rith Board of Governors luncheon here today that the incoming President was committed to “remove the log jam on emigration” of Jews and others from the Soviet Union, but “how that will be done will be determined at a later date.” He also cited Carter’s long stated opposition to the Arab boycott of Israel but could not be specific as to what action the new President will take on that issue.
Lipshutz received a warm welcome from 200 B’nai B’rith officials and guests attending the closing luncheon of the Board of Governor’s three-day meeting. It was his first public appearance since his appointment was announced. B’nai B’rith president David M. Blumberg introduced the Georgian as a former president of the Atlanta Lodge of B’nai B’rith a member of the Reform Temple in Atlanta and active in Atlanta’s Jewish Federation.
Blumberg presented Lipshutz with the text of a resolution on energy adopted at the B’nai B’rith meeting and asked him to bring it to the attention of President Carter. The resolution urges the U.S. to act in concert with other nations to resist the “inroads and demands of the OPEC cartel” and to undertake a campaign of public education and fuel conservation and an extensive research and development program on a “crash basis.”
The resolution observed that the 1973 Arab oil embargo “clearly demonstrated the ways in which cartel control of petroleum sources can be converted into political blackmail and the intent of the Arab bloc to do so whenever political purpose inspires it.”
In his remarks. Lipshutz recalled that his grandparents came to the U.S. almost 90 years ago to escape oppression in Czarist Russia. He said that his involvement in public life always had been based essentially on Jewish religious teachings and U.S. democratic system.
Lipshutz strongly defended Judge Griffin Bell, Carter’s controversial nominee for the office of Attorney General. He called Bell the “key person” in helping the State of Georgia maintain public schools and uphold court orders for integration.
(Meanwhile, in New York, the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith voiced concern today with the selection of Bell. However. Benjamin Epstein, ADL national director, said in a statement that it joined with others in not opposing Bell’s confirmation “in the hope that his actions in office will allay the doubt presently held by many Americans.”)
CORRECTION In the Jan. 12 issue of the Bulletin, Alan Rose, national executive director of the Canadian Jewish Congress, was incorrectly quoted as saying that if Quebec separates “that means the end of Canada.” His statement should have read: “If Quebec separates that could mean the end of Canada.”
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