Gen. Koenig, Spoken of As Possible Defense Minister, Urges Lifting of French Embargo

Gen. Pierre Koenig, mentioned as possible Defense Minister should Acting President Alain Poher win the French Presidential election, called yesterday for a “clear-cut French policy on Israel and the Middle East.” The five star General, speaking at a meeting of the French Committee on Solidarity With Israel, also called for an immediate lifting of France’s “total and unilateral embargo” policy on planes and spare parts to Israel. Gen. Koenig scored recent comparisons of the Arab terrorist organization and the World War II anti-Nazi French resistance movement.

Pierre Bloch, president of the League Against anti-Semitism and Racism, rapped France’s U.N. Ambassador, Armand Berard, who is accused of having made violent public anti-Semitic statements during the referendum campaign which led to the resignation of former President Charles de Gaulle. M. Bloch declared that he was “unconvinced” by explanations given him by Foreign Minister Michele Debre explaining M. Berard’s alleged statements, and called for the Ambassador’s immediate recall. Over 100,000 Frenchmen have written to the solidarity committee to express opposition to the embargo against Israel and ask for its immediate lifting, it was announced.

Meanwhile, Information Juive, the journal of the French section of the World Jewish Congress, said in an editorial that the de Gaulle regime “was a time of great sadness and great bitterness. We are not going to forget in a hurry the facts of recent years, In a few day’s time, each of us will have to decide by ballot on the candidate for the President we prefer. As a group, French Jews have no unified view of the Presidency. But it is pretty certain that it will be uppermost in the minds of Jewish voters that they must choose a man who will not cause them the sort of anguish they have gone through in the recent past.

“We are entitled to defend any cause which appears to us just and to be faithful to the soul of the Jewish people without incurring the odium of dual loyalty. But what has happened in the recent past was also contrary to the spirit and traditions of France.”

M. Poher outlined yesterday a 12-point program to wipe out what he termed the “sorry record” of 11 years of Gaullist Government. He promised major changes in just about all of Gen. de Gaulle’s controversial foreign and domestic policies. On the Mideast, M. Poher said he would re-establish a policy of “impartiality” and made it clear that “impartiality” meant improved relations with Israel. Citing the de Gaulle embargo on arms sales to Israel, which had been France’s best customer in the Mideast and which requires spare parts and replacements, the candidate said ” the decision of an embargo against a single country is unacceptable.”