A report in usually reliable political quarters here that Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger believes Israel should give up East Jerusalem and the lands it occupied in the Six-Day War was disclaimed at the State Department Friday.
According to the report, a Massachusetts member of Congress who cannot be identified, informed a meeting in Boston on Dec. 27 that Kissinger had told him Israel’s return to its 1948 lines was necessary for a Middle East peace settlement. A similar report, attributed to U.S. official sources, but not to Kissinger, circulated in Washington a month ago.
State Department spokesman Robert Anderson declared that he did not know of the “rumors” regarding the Congressman’s report and said that there is “no U.S. plan for a settlement of the Middle East problem.” Anderson asserted: “That’s not how the Secretary works. He talks with both sides — the different sides. We don’t have a plan.”
Anderson made those comments when asked by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency if the plan of Kissinger’s predecessor, former Secretary of State William P. Rogers, was still U.S. policy. Rogers in December 1969 advocated implementing United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 except for “insubstantial” changes in Israel’s borders. The Rogers plan was publicly shelved even while he was in office but never repudiated at the State Department.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
