The help the United States provided in the evacuation of the last 33 Israelis from Teheran last weekend did not cause any Americans to lose their places on the aircraft evacuating U.S. citizens from Iran, the State Department said yesterday. “No Americans, no Americans were removed from the plane or told to give up their seats,” Department spokesman Hodding Carter emphasized.
Premier Menachem Begin of Israel revealed Tuesday in a briefing to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Security Committee that 33 Americans were taken off a Pan Am plane in Teheran to make way for the 33 Israelis. In thanking the U.S. for its help. Begin said that were it not for this, the Israelis might not have gotten out and would have been in desperate danger.
Carter said the U.S. Embassy in Teheran “did help” in the evacuation of the Israelis. “The Iran government granted clearance for the Israelis to leave Iran,” he said. “Iranian government officials assisted Israelis at the Iranian airport. In fact, the Iranian government suggested to the U.S. that we provide transportation on chartered aircraft that we had arranged. We did so.”
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