The American Jewish Congress charged today that State Department officials were seeking to prevent passage of a Senate bill designed to frustrate the Arab boycott of Israel. In a letter to Secretary of State Dean Rusk, the Jewish group said the State Department was “apparently not only unwilling to protect American business from Arab boycott demands but determined not to let anyone else do anything either.”
The letter, signed by Will Maslow, executive director of the Congress, said the target of State Department efforts was a bill introduced by Senator Jacob K. Javits, Republican of New York, and Senator Harrison B. Williams, Democrat of New Jersey. The bill, which amends the Export Control Act of 1949, would make it unlawful for American businessmen to impart the kind of information customarily demanded inArab boycott questionaires circulated in the United States, including information about the identity and personalities of their officers, directors and customers.
Thirty-one Senators have joined in co-sponsoring the Senate bill while companion bills have been introduced in the House by II Representatives, it was stated. In its letter to Secretary Rusk, the American Jewish Congress charged that State Department officials had sought to apply “pressures” on Senate sponsors of the bill “to withdraw the measure or schedule no public hearings on it.”
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