The visit of Israel’s Premier Golda Meir beginning Sept. 25 is being linked with pending top level bilateral United States-Soviet talks at the United Nations on the Mideast, State Department sources said today. The presence of Mrs. Meir in the United States will be “exploited” in an effort to advance a settlement or at least to damp down hostilities, the source said. Secretary of State William P. Rogers will meet with Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei A. Gromyko both before and after Mr. Rogers and President Nixon meet with Mrs. Meir.
State Department sources voiced hope today that the presence in the U.S. of Mrs. Meir and Mr. Gromyko simultaneously may create an indirect dialogue conducive to a better understanding between the Arabs and Israel and the U.S. and Soviet Union than now exists.
Preparatory to the Gromyko-Rogers meeting in New York, Soviet Ambassador Anatoly F. Dobrynin is expected to meet in Washington with Joseph J. Sisco, Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs, within the next 24 hours.
Officials here hope that new momentum for the bilateral and Big Four initiatives may be achieved through discussions between President Nixon with Mrs. Meir. The State Department is deeply concerned about the possibility of an accidental escalation of the Israel-Arab confrontation in the Mideast. The Nixon-Rogers-Meir agenda will depend to a large extent on the Rogers-Gromyko talk, it was predicted.
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