See Yost Appointment As Forerunner of Effort at Mideast Settlement from ‘outside’

United Nations observers expressed the opinion today that the designation of Charles W. Yost as United States representative to the United Nations would lead to a greater American emphasis on a Middle East solution “from the outside” rather than the encouragement of the Arabs and Israelis to work out their differences and reach an agreement on their own.

Mr. Yost, in an article written before his appointment, appearing in the current issue of the Atlantic Monthly, called for an “outside initiative” operating through the UN to bring about a settlement of the Middle East deadlock on the basis of the Security Council resolution of Nov. 22, 1967. He declared that both the Arabs and the Israelis were so “tightly circumscribed by the political consequences of the myths so long drummed into their people” that they might not “be able to recapture the necessary freedom of movement” to work out a settlement. If that proved to be the case, he declared, “the necessary initiative can come only from the outside.”

The veteran diplomat summarized the position and demands of both the Israelis and Arabs, and justified the Israeli insistence that the Arabs recognise their status and frontiers. If Israel were granted its three major demands-recognition of its sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence by its Arab neighbors; secure and recognized boundaries with some international guarantee; and freedom of transit through the Suez Canal and the Strait of Tiran -he said, “there is some reason to believe that” Israel might be willing to withdraw from most of the territory it occupied during the June war.

He noted that the Israelis “might well require the demilitarization of the Sinai Peninsula and the West Bank of the Jordan. They might seek some form of international administration of the Gaza Strip and some international presence at the Strait of Tiran. They would probably want to negotiate some boundary adjustments with Jordan. They would doubtless hold on to the Golan Heights until Syria is willing to take part in a peaceful settlement.”

On the question of Jerusalem, he said “it would not be beyond the ingenuity of statesmen to devise a formula which would give unrestricted access to the Holy Places of all three religions, a single administration for the entire city, self-determination as to nationality for all its citizens and open frontiers around the city.” He said Israel would have to agree to an “irreducible minimum” repatriation of a small number of refugees, generous compensation for the remainder, to which both Israel and the world community would contribute, permanent resettlement in the Arab countries of those not repatriated in Israel, with international participation in the financing of such a settlement.

In announcing the surprise appointment of Mr. Yost, President-elect Richard M. Nixon called the Ambassador-designate an expert on the Middle East and possibly one of the leading authorities on that area. Mr. Yost was deputy chief of the U.S. delegation to the UN from 1961 to 1966, having served in Egypt and Poland before resigning to enter newspaper work. Later he served as ambassador to Syria.