Israel’s Premier David Ben Gurion today visited President Truman and congratulated him on his birthday. He also presented him with a Menorah made in 1767. The President remarked that 1767 marked the birth of Andrew Jackson.
“We saw eye to eye on all important issues, ” the Israeli Premier told reporters later. He said he discussed with the President problems concerning peace and economic development in Israel and the Middle East. Asked if American financial aid to Israel was discussed, Mr. Ben Gurion replied that the discussions covered general topics.
The Israeli Premier said he told President Truman that he was very much impressed by his visit to the Tennessee Valley Authority development project and pointed out that Israel is attempting such projects on a smaller scale, “We believe the main effort of human being should be directed at development and construction rather than production of the goods of war,” Mr. Ben Gurion told the reporters.
REVIEWS ISRAELI-AMERICAN RELATIONS WITH SECRETARY ACHESON
Following his visit to the White House, Mr. Ben Gurion also conferred with Secretary of State Dean Acheson for more than forty minutes. “The main thing we talked about was how to strengthen peace in the Middle East,” the Premier said later.
Secretary Acheson, in a statement to reporters, declared: “The Prime Minister and I reviewed questions which affect Israel and the United States. We also discussed peace in the Middle East and economic questions. He gave me the benefit of his views about these subjects and we talked about them.”
Israel’s Ambassador Abba Khan, who accompanied Mr. Ben Gurion to the State Department and the White House today, left early this afternoon for New York to attend the session of the U.N. Security Council at which the Israeli-Syrian conflict is to be discussed. The Israeli Premier made a broadcast in Hebrew over the Voice of America this afternoon and attended a dinner in the evening tendered in his honor by by Washington Committee for the State of Israel Bond Issue.
WILL GIVE OUTMOST SUPPORT TO EVERY MEASURE WHICH STRENGTHENS WORLD PEACE
Speaking at a luncheon at the National Press Club, Mr. Ben Gurion said that the State of Israel will support to the outmost of her capacity “every measure which strengthens world peace and opposes aggression; which promotes understanding among the peoples, and ensures the equality of nations.” Many important government officials attended the luncheon.
“Israel is at least twice as strong as we were three years ago,” the Premier told the audience. However, he stressed that this military build-up has necessitated the diversion of resources from constructive purposes. He pledged that Israel’s policies “Will be inspired by the universal aims of the United Nations.”
“We shall cooperate untiringly,” said the Prime Minister, “with all those who ### their faces against the enslavement of the souls of man; and with all who cherish the ultimate vision of peace as conceived by the prophets of Israel, that men shall heat their swords into ### and nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” He emphasized the strategic importance of the Near ###, saying in this connection that “the future of our young state is an issue of direct ### to the cause of world democracy.”
BEN GURION ISRAEL’S THANKS FOR AMERICAN AID TO JEWISH STATE
Mr. Ben Gurion conveyed to the audience the thanks of the people of Israel for the aid and support rendered by America to the Jewish state. He said: This support has deep roots in a common spiritual tradition, as well as in the character of your pioneering struggle to build your great country-an enterprise similar in its {SPAN}###{/SPAN} to the pioneering effort whereby we are establishing our small ancient country away. It is further strengthened today by our common belief in the cause of democracy-a cause that America so strongly sustains by the strength of its own institutions, by its effort to help defend it wherever it may be threatened, and by its {SPAN}###{/SPAN} readiness to render aid to other democratic lands that need such aid to preserve their way of life.
American Expert ### financial credit to Israel was valued “not only in itself, but also as a token of confidence in Israel’s economic future, and as an ### of Israel’s investment potentialities,” Mr. Ben Gurion emphasized.
Asked about the prospects of “theocratic ###” over Israel, the Israeli Premier told the National Press ### that “there never was such and never will be such and you can rely on ###.” He prefaced remark by saying that if by theocracy belief in divine justice was ###, then Israel was in that sense a theocratic state. But when he added ### that there never would be theocratic rule, the ### his words in what was perhaps the great outburst of ### of the afternoon.
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