Rep. Bertram Podell, New York Democrat, said that more than one quarter of the members of the House have agreed to boycott French President Georges Pompidou’s scheduled address to a joint session of Congress Feb. 25. Podell in a statement scheduled for release Thursday morning, said he expects the number to climb. Podell said that he had affirmative letters and telephone calls from more than 120 of the House’s 435 members in answer to his letters asking them to boycott the speech because of France’s sale of jet fighters to Libya. Podell charged the French were “merchants of death” in the Middle East and were working at odds with the United States. He pointed out that the honor of addressing a joint session of Congress was afforded to heads of state very rarely, and only three times in the past eight years. Three other New York Democratic Congressmen, Roman C. Pucinski, Mario Blaggi and Frank Brascc, signed the Podell letters.
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