The Democratic Platform Committee opened its hearings today for the 1976 Presidential campaign with a statement by AFL-CIO president George Meany strongly calling for assurances for Israel’s security and future. He also urged the committee to safeguard Soviet citizens wishing to emigrate and condemned Arab economic warfare.
Meany accompanied his testimony with a 62-page document containing the AFL-CIO specific platform proposals. The AFL-CIO said it would make the same presentation to the Republican Platform Committee at a later date.
In his presentation, Meany said: "True peace cannot be achieved in the Middle East until representatives of all the nations in that region come to a just political agreement face-to-face. Every necessary economic and military assistance required to maintain Israel as a viable democratic state must be extended and continued by the United States until Israel’s security and future are assured and internationally recognized."
The committee, led by Gov. Wendell Anderson of Minnesota, also received the AFL-CIO view that "the foreign policy of the United States should encourage the export of the ideals and institutions of democracy, not American jobs, technology and capital."
ASSAILS OIL BLACKMAIL
The AFL-CIO also said that it "rejects the contention that international trade negotiations are solely economic rather than political negotiations." These references were aimed at the Jackson-Vanik and Stevenson provisions in the U.S. Trade Act and Export-Import Bank Law that restricts U.S. trade benefits to the Soviet Union unless it eases its emigration policies for Jews and others.
Striking at the Arab oil weapon Meany said: "We believe that those who would attempt to blackmail the United States through embargoes of essential raw materials, such as oil, must know their actions will be met swiftly by retaliatory economic measures by this country." He added that "the economy of the United States and the free world must not be imperiled with impunity by blackmailing"
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