President Ford indicated last night he was optimistic that Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger would succeed in his current effort to arrange a second stage Sinai interim accord. Speaking at a White House-sponsored economic conference in Milwaukee, Ford added that some difficult problems remained to be settled in the negotiations.
Earlier in the day of his Milwaukee visit, he said he was still studying a proposal of the planned accord for sending between 100 and 150 American civilian technicians to help monitor surveillance stations in the Sinai mountain passes. He stressed in a televised interview in Milwaukee, that the Americans would not be sent without Congressional approval.
The President made those two points in reply to a question as to whether, in view of American public opposition to the Vietnam war, there might be a backlash in this country if the United States had a direct role in Mideast peace-keeping plans. Ford said. “We are not going to have any action not joined by Congress; they have to be a partner in this kind of operation if it materializes.”
The Congressional opposition about which the President apparently was thinking was made manifest in a comment yesterday by Sen. Mike Mansfield (D.Mont.), the Senate Majority Leader, that he would oppose such use of American technicians, adding that one Vietnam was one too many.
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