Sen. James Abourezk introduced a second legislative measure in the Senate yesterday in his effort to have $10 million appropriated for the refitting and operating for a year of a U.S. naval hospital ship in Lebanese waters to care for the sick and wounded victims of Lebanon’s civil war. But the Senate defeated, by a 46-42 vote, his proposal to amend the Defense Appropriations Act to enable the funding. Abourezk had sent his proposal for a “floating hospital” to President Ford.
Sen. John McClellan (D.Ark), chairman of the Appropriations Committee, opposed the amendment, observing that the Defense Department is not the proper agency for such funding. Abourezk’s bill called for providing the State Department with the funds by which the USS Sanctuary, in mothballs in the Philadelphia navy yard, would be refitted at a cost of about $6 million and operated for about $4 million for a year. Abourezk said that the ship, which has 100 hospital beds, would serve as “a symbol of the great traditions of the United States in providing humanitarian assistance.” The proposal cut across liberal and conservative lines and both parties.
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