Senator Ernest Gruening, Alaska Democrat, today protested United States Government financial aid to “the so-called American University in Cairo” and questioned its legality. The Senator maintained that such aid was prohibited by an act of Congress. “The university is controlled by the Government of Egypt” and “American only in the sense that it is supported by U.S. funds,” he asserted.
Speaking on the floor of the Senate, Sen. Gruening said such support violates the prohibition against furnishing aid to “countries severing relations with the U.S. Our economic assistance merely allowed President Nasser to divert his own resources to building up his military forces for a strike against Israel.” Egypt broke diplomatic ties with the U.S. during the Six-Day War.
He asked the Federal General Accounting Office to determine whether disbursements made to the university in Cairo “should not be disallowed and a claim processed against Egypt.” During the 1968 fiscal year the Cairo university received $200,000 in appropriated funds and the equivalent of $1 million In U.S.-owned Egyptian pounds from the Agency for International Development.
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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.
