Nixon, Mcgovern Campaign Officials Clash over Issues of Jewish Concern

High-ranking campaign officials for President Nixon and Sen. George McGovern clashed over their respective candidate’s positions on Israel, Soviet Jewry, and appointment of a Jew to the Supreme Court in a face-to-face confrontation here yesterday. Frank Mankiewicz, McGovern’s national political director, and Rita E. Hauser, a former US representative at the UN who is a co-chairman of the Committee for the Re-Election of the President, were principals in a question-and-answer debate, sponsored by the Zionist Organization of America, on issues of specific Jewish concern in the Presidential election. They spoke before more than 600 persons at the New York Hilton.

Mankiewicz warned that the Rogers plan, calling for Israel to withdraw to pre’ 67 boundaries as a precondition to Middle East peace talks, “remains the policy of the Nixon administration” and “will go into effect as public policy” if Nixon is reelected. He said that McGovern “has never supported the Rogers plan, and does not support it now.” While McGovern has said that Israel may have to withdraw from “much territory” it took during the Six-Day War, Mankiewicz said, this would come only after face-to-face negotiations at a time when Israel could go back to borders it felt were secure.

Mrs. Hauser said that administration support of Israel rests “on the issues” and not on any appeal for the Jewish vote. She said US backing of Israel is predicated on the administration’s belief that “a free and strong Israel” serves the cause of peace in the Mediterranean and the world. Mrs. Hauser said that the Middle East cease-fire and US arms aid to Israel “have made the Arabs understand” Nixon’s commitment to peace in the area.

ISSUES OF SOVIET JEWRY, U.S. SUPREME COURT

Mrs. Hauser called it a “distortion” and “non sequitur” to claim that the situation of Soviet Jews has “deteriorated” since Nixon’s summit talks in Moscow. She said “there is no cause and effect” on the matter of Soviet Jews, and that the Kremlin’s policy is in response to “internal needs.” Mrs. Hauser said that Nixon has “made it clear” in Moscow and in his Camp David talks with Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko that “the American people are opposed to the exit tax” and that American-Soviet trade agreements “will be imperiled, in terms of Congressional support,” if the Soviet Union “does not reverse its policy” on the exit tax.

Mankiewicz said “it comes as a surprise” to have Mrs. Hauser state that “the treatment of Jews in a totalitarian regime” is an “internal matter.” He charged that the administration’s public silence on the exit tax “is part of an understanding” between the US and the USSR not to upset the prospects of detente between the two countries. Mankiewicz said McGovern has spoken up on the problem of Soviet Jews from the early 1960s, while Nixon “has never said a word on the question.” The administration, he said, has taken no leadership role in helping Soviet Jews; in the United States, he said, this has been done by individuals and by the Senate.

Asked why President Nixon has not appointed a Jew to the Supreme Court to fill the seat formerly held by Justices Louis Brandeis, Benjamin Cardozo, Felix Frankfurter, Arthur Goldberg and Abe Fortas, Mrs. Hauser said she finds it “hard to understand how Jews, on the one hand, are against quotas and, on the other, can insist on a Jewish seat on the court.” Mankiewicz said he could not believe that President Nixon could not find “one qualified Jew” for the Supreme Court. This is especially difficult to comprehend, he said, because four of Nixon’s proposed selections have been “scandalous.”

The entire $1 million given by the West German government to the Israeli Magen David Adom in the wake of the Munich tragedy will be divided among the families of the 11 Israeli athletes killed there by Arab terrorists, Deputy Premier Yigal Allon told the Cabinet. He said that in addition to this money, the victims’ families will receive all the payments usually made by the government to bereaved families of Israelis killed by the enemy. Allon denied rumors that some of the $1 million German contribution would be used for a memorial project for the dead athletes. That memorial will be built by the government from other funds, Allon said.