Secretary of State Dulles yesterday corrected the Congressional Record to withdraw a remark he made to the effect that the Prophet Mohammed had been assassinated by a Jew, thereby explaining Saudi Arabian discrimination against Jews. The Secretary also withdrew remarks to the effect that a settlement between Israelis and Arabs was made more difficult by the “bargaining proclivities of both sides.
On February 24, under questioning about American accession to Saudi Arabian refusal to admit American Jewish troops to an American air base in Saudi Arabia, Secretary Dulles told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the Saudi Arabians have felt for a long time–it goes back centuries–a very particular animosity toward the Jews, because they credited the assassination of Mohammed to a Jew.” When his advisers, at his elbow, told him that he was wrong about this, Mr. Dulles told the Senate committee that he had been told that he was wrong and that “I will ask leave to correct the record in that respect later on if it proves I made a mistake.” The correction yesterday deleted part of his testimony, which now reads that the Saudi Arabians feel a “very particular animosity toward the Jews, since the time of Mohammed.”
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