National Security Council Suggests to Nixon He Make a Gift to Israel of All Weapons Shipped to Israe

The National Security Council, headed by Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger, has recommended to President Nixon that he make a gift to Israel of all the weapons the United States shipped to Israel during and since the Yom Kippur War and those now being delivered.

The weapons and the cost of shipping them to Israel total in cost between $900 million and $1 billion, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency was informed by a high U.S. authority identified with the NSC recommendation. This sum will be deducted from the $2,2 billion in emergency aid to Israel proposed by the President last October which the Congress speedily enacted.

That law authorized the President to grant up to $1.5 billion to Israel and almost all of the remaining $700 million as a credit to Israel. Congress directed the deduction from the credit figure of slightly less than $18 million as the U.S. share of the cost of maintaining for one year the United Nations Emergency Force now functioning in the Middle East.

With the deduction of the currently recommended gift, the President would still have up to $500 million he could grant to Israel. The disposition of the funds must be decided on. it was understood, by June 30, the end of the current fiscal year. Asked by the JTA as to the possibility that the Pentagon would seek to obtain $154 million of its requested $474 million in a supplemental appropriation, from the $2.2 billion fund, the authority stressed “this will never happen.”

The Senate Armed Services Committee recently suggested that action to the Defense Department. If such action was taken to help the Defense Department pay for restocking weapons it had sent to Israel, this would in effect reduce by $154 million the funds available to Israel.

CHARGE WHITE HOUSE IMPOUNDED $2.2 BILLION

The JTA source said the initial recommendation on the size of the gift became “less valid” as “events moved on and views changed.” Accordingly, he said, a new set of views has been presented to the President. The source said the latest views were presented to Nixon several days ago and “more views may come” within the next few days when the President is expected to make his decision.

The expected action by the President, it was reported, may conflict with some views in Congress. Rep. Joshua Eilberg (D.Pa.) has said that the White House has “impounded” the $2,2 billion voted four months ago and that “the Administration intends to evade the will of the Congress by making less than the stated figure of $1.5 billion in grants available in that form” to Israel. The JTA was told that it was the “clear intent of Congress” that Israel receive all of the $1.5 billion in grants.

The State Department and the Office of Budge and Management have reportedly been engaged in a bureaucratic argument on disposition of the funds, the State Department reportedly favoring giving it all to Israel as a gift and the OBM opposed to giving any of it to Israel as a grant.