Jackson: Soviets Main Problem in Mideast; Calls for Demilitarized Sinai Peninsula

Sen. Henry M. Jackson said today that the basic problem in the Middle East is not the Arab-Israeli conflict but the Soviet drive for hegemony. Appearing on the CBS television program. “Face the Nation,” the Washington Democrat called for the demilitarization of the Sinai peninsula so that Israel will have defensible borders and rejected the view that Israel was intransigent. Jackson also disclosed that Egypt’s President Anwar Sadat visited Moscow last week on a “secret mission.” (In Cairo, later in the day, Sadat announced that he had made such a visit). Recalling the late President Nasser’s visit to Moscow in Jan., 1970, Jackson said the result was a big build-up of Soviet military power in Egypt. “It will be interesting to see what happens,” now, he added. Jackson said that the Soviets have three secret air bases in Egypt from which they fly operational missions and which are barred even to Egyptian personnel.

Asked by one newsman if he “sided with Israel’s intransigence,” Jackson said he did not think Israel was intransigent and observed that Israelis have been pleading for peace for 23 years. Most of the other statements offered by Jackson to the panel of newsmen was essentially a repetition of statements he made Friday in an address to the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco. He stated that Israeli withdrawal to defensible borders must be accompanied by Soviet withdrawal from Egypt. Noting that we all share an urgent desire for a settlement of the tragic conflict,” Jackson added: “We must not be a party to forcing a fragile interim arrangement that prejudices Israel’s security and at the same time fails to guard the national security interests of the United States and our allies.” He warned that “Under no circumstances should Israel be pressed to withdraw or the Suez Canal be reopened as a means of achieving a temporary settlement that leaves the larger question of Soviet involvement in the region unaffected.”