The Defense Department has terminated the arrangements under which military officers from Arab countries which broke off relations with this country have been receiving advanced training here, and is sending the Iraqi and Sudanese officers home, the Department confirmed this weekend.
The Defense Department had previously notified the American Jewish Congress of its decision after the AJC had protested reported plans to double the number of Arab officers receiving military training here. Assistant Secretary of Defense Townsend Hoopes, stressed in a letter to AJC, however, that the United States will continue to offer military instruction to personnel from “moderate” Arab states as “an alternative to the pressures and temptations of radical Pan-Arabism as exemplified by Nasser.” He said “by training some of the future leaders of Arab countries, we have exposed them to life in our own democratic society.” Larger numbers of trainees will in future be drawn from Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and Jordan.
Stanley H. Lowell, chairman of the AJC international affairs committee, to whom the letter was addressed, commented that the best way to train future leaders for the Arab states was not in war but through training in politics and economics.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.
