Rabin Says He Disagrees with Reports Sisco’s Mission Was a Failure

Yitzhak Rabin, Israel’s ambassador to the United States, told more than 100 Jewish leaders yesterday that he disagreed with press reports calling State Department official Joseph J. Sisco’s recent mission to Israel a failure. An interim agreement to reopen the Suez Canal is still possible, and in fact is more likely than an over-all settlement, Rabin advised leaders of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. The transition from war to peace, Rabin observed, was not an act but a process, not a question of signatures on documents but of relations among human beings. Egypt, he said, must therefore demonstrate to a greater degree her professed desire for peace with Israel. Rabin received enthusiastic applause for his more-than-hour-long speech.