Oil Firms, Pro-arab Groups Trying to Defeat Anti-boycott Measure

Major American oil companies and pro-Arab groups are intensifying efforts to defeat the anti-boycott amendments to the Export Administration Act, employing arguments that American business and American consumers would suffer more than the Arab countries if the amendment is adopted.

Rep. Joshua Eilberg (D.Pa.), a leading supporter of the amendment, circulated today a letter he received from H.C, Kauffmann, president of the Exxon Corp., warning that the amendment “could very well result in a stricter enforcement of Arab boycott practices and Jeopardize our country’s ability to meet its ever increasing needs for oil imports.”

In an accompanying letter of his own, advertised establishments. Either, said of the cold warning, “As usual, in an attempt to prevent any restrictions on their operations, the major oil companies are exaggerating the effect of the proposed measure and minimizing the problem we are trying to correct.”

WARNINGS TO AMERICA

Meanwhile, the Mobil Oil Co., in an advertisement in the New York Times today and the National Association of Arab Americans (NAAA). in an ad published today in the Washington Post, took almost identical lines in opposing the anti-boycott amendment.

The Mobil ad said the company believed the amendment could “make it impossible for American companies to import oil into the United States” and “make it impossible for American manufacturers to sell goods to Arab countries.” The ad contended that “the United States needs Arab oil more than the Arabs need U.S. goods and know-how….America, we fear, might be reduced to a second-rate economic power; our citizens to a second-rate standard of living….”

The NAAA ad alleged that “The bill will not hurt the Arab countries as much as it will hurt the U.S.” that “there will be an immediate impact on industry and jobs” and on America’s balance of payment and that adoption of the amendment “will disrupt a delicate balance in the Middle East.”