Eisenhower Returns to Washington to Deal with Gaza-akaba Issue

President Eisenhower has cut short his vacation to fly back from Thomasville, Ga., to Washington to deal with the Gaza-Akaba problem. It was announced here today. At the same time. White House spokesman James Hagerty denied a published report that the President plans to go before the United Nations General Assembly to make a dramatic new proposal.

Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson said today he hopes the apparent deadlock over Israel withdrawal from the Gaza and Akaba areas “does not revive talk about sanctions or coercion.” He said the United Sates interests lie in keeping discussion going. He warned that once the contending nations stopped talking “they will go ahead and fight.” Sen. Johnson is a Texas Democrat.

The Citizens’ Foreign Relations Committee, a newly organized group of prominent individuals, today proposed to Secretary of State Dulles that the Middle East dispute be brought before the International Court. The group said the U. S. should insist on its submission to the International Court unless Israel and Egypt agree to arbitration.

Vice President Richard M. Nixon today received a delegation of the Rabbinical Council of America, an Orthodox group. The delegation suggested that the United States recommend to the United Nations the appointment of a special commission to study the entire Gaza problem. Such a commission, the delegation said, would consider the very complex problems which involve Gaza’s economic status, the refugees and the preventing of attacks which have been launched against Israel from that area. The rabbis suggested that the problem of the Gaza Strip and the Gulf of Akaba be solved separately. The Orthodox Rabbis also requested that the ban placed on U. S. trips to Israel be removed to permit Interested American Jews to make a Passover pilgrimage to Israel this year.