House Minority Leader Gerald R. Ford warned tonight that the United States must reduce its dependency on the Arab states for oil or risk the possibility of Arab economic “blackmail” attempts against American foreign policy in the Middle East.
In an address to a Zionist Organization of America dinner at the Statler Hilton here, Ford said “there have been threats from various Arab sources that we must abandon Israel if the oil is to flow. It is my conviction that we must not permit any regime in the Middle East to have Uncle Sam over a barrel of oil. We cannot afford to pay the first installment of such blackmail. If we open ourselves to blackmail, we will never know the timing or extent of future extortions.”
The 12-term Michigan Congressman spoke at a dinner of the ZOA New England Region at which Mr. and Mrs. Milton C. Borenstein of Boston were presented the organization’s Louis D. Brandeis Award for their “lifelong service to the Jewish community and the State of Israel.” Massachusetts Governor Francis W. Sargent was also cited as the ZOA Region’s “Man of the Year.”
ALTERNATIVES TO OIL VITAL
In declaring that the United States “must be no more dependent than absolutely necessary on foreign energy sources,” Ford called for the accelerated development of American “oil and natural gas potentialities, along with nuclear, solar and non-fossil fuels.” These, he said, are “vital to U.S. national security.”
Ford was the second leading House Republican this month to cite the possible danger to American foreign policy that is inherent in the United States’ reliance on the Arab world for much of its oil. Rep. John B. Anderson of Illinois, chairman of the House Republican Conference, told a ZOA dinner in Miami Beach on May 2 that “the potential for political blackmail” by the Arabs “is obvious,” and that “it is not hard to imagine the implications and pressures that will hamper strong diplomacy in behalf of Israel.”
In his speech, Ford urged President Nixon to discuss the sale of Soviet arms to Syria and the Soviets’ “widespread harassment” of Jews seeking to emigrate to Israel during his scheduled meeting in June with Soviet Communist Party Secretary Leonid I. Brezhnev. In addition, Ford said that the USSR’s temporary suspension of the “education tax” on Jews who wish to leave the USSR “does not by itself resolve this compelling human problem.” He said he would like Nixon “to obtain from Mr. Brezhnev a response that will amount to deeds rather than words.”
Ford also said that President Nixon should bring up “the recent transfer of French military jet aircraft to Egypt from Libya” in his scheduled May 31-June 1 meeting in Iceland with French President Georges Pompidou. “I feel that this misuse of French arms violates the spirit of our historic cooperation with France,” he said.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
