Eban Meets Again with Dulles: State Department Reported Pessimistic

Israel Ambassador Abba Eban met with Secretary of State John Foster Dulles this afternoon in an urgent attempt to avoid a breakdown in UN negotiations on the troop withdrawal issue. Mr. Dulles cancelled a White House luncheon with President Eisenhower and French Premier Mollet in order to meet Mr. Eban. (See Ambassador Eban’s statement on Page 3.)

State Department sources revealed that after hopeful progress Sunday in his meeting with Secretary Dulles, Mr. Eban encountered serious difficulties in further negotiations with United Nations Secretary Dag Hammarksjold. The State Department is now pessimistic about the status of the negotiations.

President Eisenhower today sought to persuade France Premier Guy Mollet that French support of Israel was out in France’s own best interests. This was learned from sources close to the discussions, which opened this morning at the White House between the two leaders. White House spokesman James Hagerty declined to say directly if the withdrawal question was discussed. He would say only that the talk dealt with the Middle East.

M. Mollet, it was learned, asked Mr. Eisenhower to consider Israel’s case against Egypt. But Mr. Eisenhower reportedly stressed the overriding importance of persuading the Arabs to accept the Eisenhower Doctrine. He pointed to the primacy of anti-Communist strategy in the area and was said to have told M. Mollet the new U.S. doctrine would in the long run benefit Israel as well as the Arabs by shielding the entire region from Soviet penetration.

SENATE HEARS PLEAS FOR ISRAEL; SENATORS SPEAK AGAINST SANCTIONS

The State Department is maneuvering to avoid a United Nations sanctions showdown until later this week when the Senate votes on the Eisenhower Doctrine. Congressional sources charged today. These sources said the Administration fears that a sanctions move by the United States at the United Nations might bring counter-action against the Eisenhower Doctrine resolution in the Senate. Some Senators have privately made known they told Secretary of State Dulles they would introduce amendments to safeguard Israel’s security if the Administration takes a stand for sanctions against Israel.

Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson reported today that “developments thus far” in Israel-American negotiations “indicate the wisdom of postponing a direct showdown on the sanctions issue” by the United Nations. He said “it becomes increasingly obvious that there are real ‘give and take’ discussions which are more fruitful than sanctions.”

Sen. Stuart Symington, former Secretary of the Air Force, told the Senate today that in the event of I world war, Israel would be needed by the United States as a staging base. The Missouri Democrat spoke of the need for possible Air Force and missile bases, places where planes might be based, men massed, and atomic ammunition and other munitions stored. “Israel could be such a staging base, providing we have not weakened that little nation or utterly alienated her,” he stated. He entered a vigorous protest against anti-Israel sanctions.

Sen. Symington asked the Senate not to forget “that the Egyptian Army was equipped with Russian MIG fighters and Stalin tanks. And yet Israel’s army proved itself one of the greatest little fighting machines in the world–it swept right over those Egyptians armed by the Communists. There could conceivably come a time when America would need that hard-fighting Israel Army.”

Sen. Joseph C. C’Mahoney, Wyoming Democrat, spoke out against imposing sanctions on Israel. He asked the Senate today how the Administration could talk of commitments to human freedom and simultaneously consider sanctioning Israel, which he called “the only free nation in the Middle East.” He placed the blame for Middle East unrest on the Arabs who “have been doing their best to destroy the independent, popular government of Israel.”

(See Page 2 for 20 Congressmen speaking in House in protest against sanctions on Israel.)