Leading French newspapers today headlined Soviet Premier Khrushchev’s anti-Israel statement made in Cairo yesterday, and warned that his promise of further military aid to Egypt may involve the rest of the world in warfare.
The mass circulation L’Aurore emphasized that, if Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser “should give in to the temptation, and use the forthcoming Soviet arms aggressively, America might, in turn, be involved in the fighting, since she has guaranteed the territorial status quo of the Middle East. Thus, an Israeli-Arab conflict might soon degenerate into total warfare.” Other French newspapers commented in the same vein.
A senior official in the French Foreign Ministry, however, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency “it is a long way between public declarations and actions.” The diplomat indicated that the French Government has no information whatever showing that additional Soviet arms deliveries are expected by Egypt.
(In London, the Daily Herald, Labor newspaper, attacked Soviet Premier Khrushchev today for what it called “irresponsibility” in his anti-Israeli speech in Cairo yesterday. “Tension between Israel and the Arab states, ” declared the paper, in its leading editorial, “is already acute enough. Yesterday Mr. Khrushchev made it worse.”)
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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.
