The House Foreign Affairs Committee received today a call for a full inquiry into the United States vote March ! on the anti-Israeli resolution adopted by the United Nations Security Council. But the committee indicated that it would not make a decision until some time next week. Relatedly, the Senate foreign Relations Committee will hold a hearing on the same issue early next week.
Reps. Elizabeth Holtzman (D. NY), Christopher Dodd (D. Conn.) and Hamilton Fish (R.NY) presented the resolution this afternoon with demands that Congress and people of the U.S., in Dodd’s words. “have a right to know” whether U.S. policy has changed toward Israel and what led both to the U.S. and President Carter’s dissociation from it two days later. Dodd said that the statement by U.S. Ambassador to the UN Donald McHenry declaring that the dismantling of Jewish settlements on the West Bank is impractical “hardly mitigates the damage done by the vote itself.”
However, Rep. Clement Zablocki (D. Wisc.), the committee’s chairman, urged that the committee meet behind closed doors and hear Secretary of State Cyrus Vance discuss the issues. Zablocki, when asked by Rep. William Broomfield (R. Mich.), The ranking minority member on the committee why he objected to McHenry’s appearance, replied: “McHenry is a friend of mine and I wouldn’t want him here. Why? Because we are going to have the Secretary of State.”
A letter to the committee from J. Bryan Atwood, Assistant Secretary of State for Congressional Relations, said that much of “the advice and information” related to the discussions between President Carter and his senior advisors during the “decision making process” was “exchanged orally at the highest levels of government.” At wood added that foreign relations are “entitled to the highest category of executive privilege.”
Zablocki, opposing the inquiry request, said that “in no way could it undo the damage done.” He said that the committee “could demonstrate our continuing, unwavering support of Israel” and the “best tangible way” is to pass aid programs for Israel as “expeditiously as possible.”
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