A tacit Anglo-United States agreement has been leached, according to an authoritative United Nations Source, “to put Israel into a more reasonable frame of mind” during the interregnum while the U.N. Security Council is in transit from Lake Success to Paris.
The main instrument for this purpose, it was learned today, is direct U.S. intervention in Europe to prevent further aid from reaching Israel from Eastern Europe. The state Department denied last week that it had warned Eastern European states against continuing to supply Israel with arms. But this denial is taken in U.N. circles here as no more than a face-saving formula since the precise details of American diplomatic steps in Prague and Helsinki are known.
The U.S. representative in Prague advised the Czechoslovak authorities that the United States would take certain sanctions if the Czechoslovak Government did not close down a special airport serving an air transport shuttle service between Czechoslovakia and Israel. This airfield was mentioned earlier in a statement issued by the British Foreign Office, which charged the Czechoslovak Government with supplying Israel with arms by this route. It is now understood that following the American warning the Czechoslovak authorities did close the field.
A second instrument of pressure on Israel is seen in the Security Council’s coming vote on Israel’s request for membership in the United Nations. It is understood that Britain might now agree to vote to admit Israel, if the Israeli Government meanwhile agrees to a definition of frontiers and to accept in principle some disposition of the Arab refugee problem.
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