Dr. Eugen Gerstenmair, president of the West German Bundestag, arrived today at Lydda Airport and was whisked past a small group of demonstrators. He met with President Ben-Zvi and Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion today and had lunch with Moshe Sharett, chairman of the Jewish Agency executive.
A small group of Herut youngsters waited with folded protest posters for almost four-and-a-half hours for his arrival. By the time the West German official’s plane arrived, the demonstrators had melted to a handful of boys and girls in Betar uniforms standing on both sides of the main road leading to the airport. Police officials had posted strong guards and plainclothesmen near them to avoid any incident.
Dr. Gerstenmair, the first leading West German official to visit Israel, was met at the airport by Dr. Felix Shinar of the Israel Mission at Cologne which extended the invitation to the Bonn leader. He will be in Israel eight days.
Later today he met with Professor Martin Buber and conferred with Haim Yahil, the director-general of the Israel Foreign Ministry. Because of Herut objections, he will not visit Israel’s Parliament where he would normally have been accorded the usual courtesies to a visiting head of a Parliament. He will be received privately by Knesset Speaker Kaddish Luz at the Degania kibbutz.
The visitor commented that he knew he would have “grave questions” to answer during his visit but that he had the answers.
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