Soviet Resolution Seeking Condemnation of Israel Defeated at Security Council

The Soviet Union was overwhelmingly defeated in the Security Council today in efforts to obtain condemnation of Israel as an aggressor in last week’s war and to have the Council demand immediate Israeli withdrawal of forces from Egypt. Syria and Jordan. To pass, the Soviet resolution would have required at least nine votes of approval in the 15-member body. The resolution failed when the vast majority, including the United States, Britain and France, abstained.

Dr. Nikolai Fedorenko, the Soviet permanent representative, requested the calling of an emergency General Assembly session as soon as his resolution was defeated. He pointed out that the permanent members of the Security Council had been unable to agree on the necessary steps for resolution of the crisis. He gave notice that in accordance with the UN charter, it had now become necessary “to search for other means.” Those other means will have to be sought in the General Assembly, he implied.

Under the United Nations Charter, UN Secretary General U Thant must act on that kind of request immediately. Mr. Thant sent urgent messages to all the 122 member states of the United Nations. When and if he receives affirmative replies from a simple majority of the members, 62, he would summon the General Assembly to hold an emergency special session within 24 hours. There was little doubt here that at least 62 members would support the Soviet call for the emergency special session of the Assembly.

A member of the Soviet delegation at the UN told newsmen today that if and when the Assembly was convened for an emergency special session, the Soviet Union would be represented at that session by someone higher than Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko. It was not known whether this referred to Premier Kosygin or possibly to Leonid Breshnev, first secretary of the Soviet Communist party.

GOLDBERG REBUKES ARAB SPEAKERS CRITICIZING SEN. KENNEDY AND GOV. BOCKEFELLER

Ambassador Arthur Goldberg, head of the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, speaking at the Security Council rejected vigorously charges voiced by Arab representatives that various American political leaders–including U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy and New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller–of issuing statements which the Arabs said were unfriendly to the Arab states.

“Again I should like to make something very explicit,” Mr. Goldberg said. “I do not apologize in any sense for the expressions by any American group of their point of view about this problem, whether it is the Arab-American Society, headed by Dr. Mehdi who met with me, or by the head of any Zionist organization”.

“It is legitimate–I have said this and I repeat it–to comment about the foreign policies of our government, the declarations made by the President, the Secretary of State, myself and others who have the responsibility for enunciating the foreign policy of our government. When other officials of the United States government, the legislative branch–and I shall be very precise–Senator Kennedy or Governor Rockefeller or anybody else, express themselves, they are also exercising their rights as public officials and American citizens.”

Ambassador Mordecai Kidron, Israel’s representative at the Council at this time, spoke today on the Argentine-Brazil-Ethiopian draft resolution on humane treatment of civilians in occupied territory and for prisoners of war. He told the Council that Israel “was fully aware” of its responsibilities and that, in the “few days since the fighting stopped,” Israel had made “herculean efforts to insure the safety and the well-being of all civilians and all refugees.”