Rogers Skirts Mideast in Report to Senate Foreign Relations Committee

Secretary of State William P. Rogers made the barest mention of the Middle East in his presentation to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee today of the State Department’s policy and operations report. In the 26-page prepared report Rogers referred to that troubled area with one sentence: “We have worked with some success to keep the Middle East below the flash point.”

Neither the committee chairman. Sen. J. William Fulbright (D., Ark.), nor any of the eight other members of the 16-man committee present referred to the area in their questioning at the three-hour hearing. The only Jewish member of the committee, Sen. Jacob K. Javits (R., N.Y.), did not ask about the Mideast. The only Presidential candidate on the committee, Sen. Edmund S. Muskie (D., Me.), was absent.

The virtual absence of mention of the Mideast stirred speculation among some independent observers that a significant negotiation development is under way in the Mideast and that the committee was made aware of this. However, Joseph J. Sisco, Assistant Secretary of State specializing in the Mideast and Southeast Asia, is to appear before the committee tomorrow, and the whole Mideast situation doubtlessly will be subject to questioning.

Rogers told newsmen yesterday that he would not disclose the nature of discussions pertaining to the Mideast. He reiterated what he said in his introduction to the lengthy foreign policy report issued yesterday, that his goal in the Mideast this year is a reopening of the Suez Canal through an interim agreement between Egypt and Israel, Soviet Jewry was not mentioned in any form at today’s hearing. However, the Secretary’s report implied that the State Department was not asking for any special funds for Israel for Soviet Jewish refugees settling there.

$8.212M FOR REFUGEE ASSISTANCE

The Department, Rogers’ statement to the committee said, was asking “a relatively modest $8,212,000 for the migration and refugee-assistance program under which the Department provides assistance to migrants and refugees through contributions from such organizations as the International Governmental Committee for European Migration (ICEM) and the UN High Commission for Refugees, and unilaterally through assistance to refugees designated by the President as authorized by law.”

At a House subcommittee hearing last Thursday on a bill providing $85 million for Israel for Soviet refugees, the State Department sympathized with the plight of Soviet Jews but indicated that any funding for them should be considered in the overall assistance being given to Israel. The subcommittee chairman, Rep. Wayne L. Hays (D.,O.), directed the Department to submit its views in “a couple of weeks.” ICEM at present is supplying some assistance to Soviet Jews en route to Israel via Vienna and Rome.