The Senate Foreign Relations Committee was told here this weekend that $4, 000, 000 in Government funds have been handed over to a certain anti-Israel organization as part of a concerted policy of appeasing Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser.
The charge was made during testimony by Bushrod Howard, Jr. , a registered agent for the royalist government of Yemen, who said that Congress should halt all aid to Egypt until President Nasser fulfills his pledge to withdraw his forces from Yemen.
Mr. Howard was not asked to identify the anti-Israel organization and he did not volunteer its name. Sen. Wayne Morse, Democrat of Oregon, said he wanted to get this information directly from the State Department.
Mr. Howard said that Government officials, “determined to appease Nasser at all costs, are putting all blame for the problem of the Middle East on Israel and American Jews. To counter these alleged evils they have, over the years, put some $4, 000, 000 of Government funds into an anti-Israeli organization. “
Sen. Morse, who acted as committee chairman, stated at the end of Mr. Howard’s testimony that a copy of the transcript would be forwarded to the State Department for a reply to the committee. He said Mr. Howard had made “very serious charges which demand an official response. “
NEW YORK SENATORS PROPOSE TO DENY U. S. AID TO EGYPT
Earlier in the hearing, Senators Jacob K. Javits and Kenneth B. Keating of New York had urged the committee to deny aid to Egypt and any other country using American assistance to subvert or propagandize against other countries being helped by the United States. Sen. Keating further proposed that aid be suspended to any country that buys large quantities of Soviet military equipment and that countries receiving U. S. aid be required to submit reports on the amount of such purchases.
In a direct reference to Egypt, Sen. Keating said; “Congress certainly should reduce any aid programmed for Nasser by at least the amount that Nasser feels able to splurge on Soviet equipment. He told the committee that according to “the best evidence available to me, ” Nasser will have spent over $700, 000, 000 on Soviet bloc weapons from June 1955 through 1964.”
The State Department’s latest expression of its attitude toward Egypt is contained in a recent position paper which states that “United Arab Republic actions against Israel are increasingly restrained, predominantly in the form of words, and its relations with Israel more in the box than at any time heretofore. “
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