The Mirage jet, a French supersonic warplane may soon be manufactured in the United States for export to small countries that cannot afford more complex, more expensive aircraft, it was reported here today. According to the reports, the French manufacturer of the Mirage, Marcel Dassault, has made an offer to the Boeing Co. to produce the fighter plane in the U.S. under a licensing arrangement. The intent would be to enter the Mirage in the pending “Freedom Fighter” competition from which the U.S. Defense Department will select a high quality but relatively inexpensive aircraft for use by “third countries.”
If the Boeing Co. accepts the Dassault offer it will probably build a version of the Mirage III or Mirage V, the reports said. France has recently agreed to sell more than 100 Mirages to Libya. Reports from Paris said that an agreement was signed there yesterday for the sale of 30 Mirages to Spain. The deal was described as fitted to current French policy of strengthening its position in the Mediterranean area, primarily through the sale of weaponry. A more immediate affect will be to bolster France’s lagging aircraft industry which has suffered a loss of exports as a result of the arms embargo against Israel imposed by former President Charles de Gaulle.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
