A number of Democratic members of both Houses of Congress served notice today that they oppose Secretary of State John Foster Dulles’ suggestion to avoid debate on the Arab-Israel issue during the forthcoming Presidential election campaign.
American policy in the Middle East must be criticized and debated, said Senator Herbert H. Lehman. “If ever there was a policy which needed to be examined and re-examined and debated,” the Senator said, “it is the Administration’s course of action in the Middle East; I really don’t think it amounts to a policy.” U. S. action in the Middle East has been founded on “fallacious assumptions and naive concepts of strategy,” Sen. Lehman said. The U. S. must not allow the balance of power to be upset in the Middle East or the territorial integrity of Israel to be sacrificed, he declared.
Senators Wayne Morse and Hubert Humphrey, both Democrats and members of the Foreign Relations Committee, voiced similar disagreement with Secretary Dulles’ proposal and said they would not consent to “exempt” the Arab-Israel dispute from the 1956 campaign debates.
The Israeli-Arab question is a legitimate issue for public debate Congressman Emanuel Celler said today criticizing Secretary Dulles’ request to exclude the Middle Eastern issue on election talks. Mr. Celler pointed out that “constructive criticism of the conduct of foreign affairs is most certainly not inconsistent with a bipartisan policy A bipartisan policy does not mean that the loyal opposition sits back, hands tied and tongue tied, when in its honest opinion it sees mistake after mistake being made,” he said.
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