Rogers Renews Emphasis on Canal Reopening Through Interim Accord

Secretary of State William P. Rogers put renewed emphasis today on reopening the Suez Canal through an interim agreement between Israel and Egypt and strongly reaffirmed that the area’s military balance will be maintained by the United States. In a personal introduction to a 604-page State Department report on American foreign policy, Rogers summarized his Middle East goal for 1972 as follows:

“It will be a year of sustained effort to continue the cease-fire in the Middle East and to bring about an interim Suez Canal agreement as an initial step towards peace…We are determined not to permit the military balance to tip against Israel.” Rogers reiterated his oft-stated support for United Nations representative Gunnar V. Jarring’s efforts to achieve an overall settlement and the Secretary’s belief that “steps to achieve an interim agreement complement these efforts.”

Rogers warned: “Without progress on a settlement the relative calm of 1971 threatens to give way to new hostilities. We must not sit by inactively and watch that happen.” There was some wonderment among observers at Rogers’ emphasis on an interim agreement in view of the recent statement directly attributed to Egyptian President Anwar Sadat that the proposed proximity talks on the American initiative were “a dead horse.”

Supplementing President Nixon’s State of the World report of Jan. 20, the Rogers presentation took much the same path in describing American relations with the Soviet Union, but the Secretary’s tone was milder and his criticism less detailed. Nixon emphasized in stronger terms the Soviet penetration into the Eastern Mediterranean and its adverse implications for US interests. There was some speculation here that the contrast in the reports on this aspect derived from their timing–the President’s was issued before his China trip and the Secretary’s before Nixon’s Moscow visit.

U.S. CONCERNED ABOUT SOVIET JEWRY

“The overall level of worldwide US-Soviet tensions continued to diminish (in 1971),” Rogers said, commenting that “its (the USSR) record in the Middle East was at best mixed.” “Our relations will not be harmonious, therefore,” he continued, “until further evolution in Soviet thinking overcomes the temptation to exploit explosive situations for national advantage. We will discuss these issues frankly with the Soviet leaders in May.”

In a three-paragraph section on Soviet Jewry, Rogers said that “the willingness of the Soviet government to permit some thousands of Soviet Jews to emigrate was welcomed as a step forward by the American people but did not lessen concern in this country over the status of Jews in the Soviet Union.”

After referring to US moves to help Soviet Jews, Rogers condemned “violent and illegal actions against Soviet personnel” in the US, which, he pointed out, “continued throughout 1971.” Mentioning the alleged firing of shots into the Soviet Mission in New York, which he said “generated especially serious concern about extremist activity.” Rogers noted that the reported act “did not aid the cause of Soviet Jewry but adversely affected US relations with the Soviet Union.”

In asserting that the military balance will be maintained, Rogers said that “we have continued to sell US military equipment and supplies” to Israel “in response to the large shipments of arms by the Soviet Union to Egypt in 1969 and 1970 and to the increased direct Soviet operational involvement in Egypt’s air defense system.” Rogers pointed out that the Soviet-Egyptian friendship treaty of May 1971 and the October agreement at the end of Sadat’s visit to Moscow on “specific measures to strengthen the military might of Egypt” were “developments (that) do not contribute to the cause of peace in the Middle East.”

FORMAL DIPLOMATIC TIES WITH CAIRO

Discussing American-Egyptian relations, Rogers indicated his wish for formal diplomatic ties with Cairo. The Secretary of State said that “we would like and continue ready to resume (the) normal, across-the-board relations with Egypt.” He noted that there has been “significant” private American investment in Egyptian petroleum. “A major complicating factor between the US and Egypt,” Rogers said, “continues to be the large Soviet military presence there, with its unsettling implications for NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) in the Eastern Mediterranean and for the military balance in the Middle East.”

In both tone and content, the Rogers report seemed eager to provide a friendly word for almost every Middle East state. A page in the Mideast section was devoted to three photographs, and in them Amman and Cairo easily had the better of Jerusalem. The largest photo, at the top of the page, showed Rogers and King Hussein Jovially shaking hands. Another photo found him seated comfortably with a smiling President Anwar Sadat. But with Golda Meir. the Secretary and the Israeli Premier stood looking in opposite directions, open-mouthed and unsmiling as if attracted by other matters.

The “continued independence and stability” of what Rogers called “moderate” Jordan “is an essential element in the search for an Arab-Israeli peace settlement,” the Secretary said. Rogers noted also that “Lebanon remained an important regional center for hundreds of American business firms.” The US. he elaborated, accounted for around 10 percent of Lebanon’s total imports. Referring to Syria, Rogers noted that while diplomatic relations have not been resumed, Damascus has “shown some interest in encouraging American business to reenter the market and, accordingly, has taken steps toward settlement of certain debts owed to US government agencies.