Rogers Encouraged by Talks with Eban, Riad; U.S. Still for Rectification

There were no new proposals and no new developments at Secretary of State William P. Rogers’ week-end meeting in New York with Israeli and Egyptian Foreign Ministers, but Mr. Rogers “was encouraged by the conversation,” State Department spokesman Robert J. McCloskey said today. Mr. Rogers’ New York talks with Abba Eban and Mahmoud Riad were an “attempt to assess the situation” and to determine “Where do we go from here?,” Mr. McCloskey said. Asked to forecast when the Jarring peace mission might be reactivated, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State replied: “No one can tell you when the talks will resume–no one.” Mr. McCloskey was questioned on reports that the United States has given up on attempts to effect “rectification” of Egyptian missile violations in the Suez Canal standstill zone. “That would not be correct,” he said of the reports. Pressed on why he had not mentioned “rectification” in a recent briefing devoted to the Middle East, which had led some newsmen to conclude the U.S. was downplaying an Egyptian missile rollback, Mr. McCloskey remarked: “I thought I spoke to that last week with constructive ambiguity.”

Mr. McCloskey also said there was no significance in the finding of an American corporal’s identification card in Jordan by Palestinians. The soldier has been in Amman since February as an Embassy aide, Mr. McCloskey indicated, and to suggest that he was involved in September’s Jordanian civil war “is to stretch credulity to its outer limits.” The State Department official repeated administration assertions by declaring: “I can assure you that there was no American involvement.” (In Cairo earlier today, El Fatah leader Yassir Arafat had displayed the ID card and identified its owner as an American marine named Mark Lenner. He said the card had been found in Ashrafiya Hospital in September and that it proved “an American command” led the Jordanian Army fighting against the guerrillas. He also charged the Central Intelligence Agency with attempting “the liquidation of the Palestine resistance.”)