Senator J. W. Fulbright, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, left today for Paris after a 36-hour visit during which he was obviously impressed by Israel’s achievements. Political sources here indicated, however, that the visit apparently had not changed the Senator’s public position about the Israel-Arab conflict.
(In a dispatch from Jerusalem, The New York Times reported that Senator Fulbright had proposed that Israel should permit some of the refugees to return and that on his return to the United States he intended to seek to set up an impartial group of experts to study the Arab refugee problem and recommend solutions.)
The Arkansas Democrat said in an interview that his tour had convinced him that the refugee problem was at the root of Arab-Israel hostility. He said that with an advance commitment from Israel of cooperation in a major resettlement program, he felt the Arab countries could not object to an investigation into the desires of the refugees themselves.
Senator Fulbright was seen off by Ogden R. Reid, American Ambassador to Israel, and key officials of the Israel Foreign Ministry.
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