Israel Ambassador Yitzhak Rabin today told the concluding session of the Labor Zionist Organization of America — Poale Zion that he hoped and believed that an agreement between the United States and Israel on the sale of 50 Phantom Jets will be signed before President-elect Richard M. Nixon takes over Jan. 20. “We’re in the practical phase of the negotiations,” he told reporters. Mr. Rabin told the convention that he regretted that sometimes in the U.S. ” we have to beg for 50, 60 or 100 hundred jets. We shall overcome even some reluctance to sell these planes.”
Israel and the U.S. are concluding negotiations for the sale of the fighter-bombers, the Washington Post reported. The plane sale agreement, expected to run between $175 million and $200 million. Is expected to be concluded shortly and then shifted to the Defense Department for sale logistics. Delivery of the F-4s originally was not to begin until 1970, but U.S. officials are reportedly sufficiently impressed with the influx of new Soviet military equipment in the Middle East, particularly Egypt,to sympathize with Israel’s desire to have deliveries begin in 1969, the paper reported.
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