The Republican Coordinating Committee has urged the Immediate supply of supersonic military Jets to Israel to counter-balance the latest model Soviet jets being supplied to the Arabs and declared that it was “deeply disturbed” by the deteriorating situation in the Middle East. The statement by the Committee and its recommendations was released today by Republican National Chairman Ray C. Bliss. The Committee includes among its members, former Vice President Richard M. Nixon, candidate for the Republican presidential nomination. Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller, of New York, Senate Minority Leader Everett M. Dirksen and House Minority Leader Gerald R. Ford.
The Committee reported that “despite Israeli concern that only American F-4 Phantoms might match the new Soviet supersonic SU-7 now in Egyptian hands,” the Administration supplied Israel only with the subsonic A-4 Skyhawks. The Committee charged that “even supplying the older plane has created difficulties, particularly since the Democratic Administration slowed the process down by attempting to make a profit on the sale of the Skyhawks to Israel.”
The Republican leaders said that in view of aggressive Soviet efforts to penetrate the Middle East and in the absence of any big power agreement to limit arms shipments to the region, Israel should receive American arms “to maintain the balance of power and to serve as a deterrent to renewed open warfare.” They called for U.S. leadership in the U.N. and elsewhere to secure a political settlement providing for an end to the state of belligerence.
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