White House Mum on Allegation That Cia Gave Israel Government Money for Projects in Africa

The White House today refused to discuss a published allegation that the Central Intelligence Agency “provided large sums to the Israel government” for use in Africa. The Israeli Embassy dismissed the report with a brief denial.

In declining to comment, deputy Presidential news secretary Rex Grandum referred to the White House statement last Friday in the King Hussein case that Administration policy is not to comment–not to confirm or to deny–alleged covert stories because if it did “the operation no longer would be covert.” An Israeli Embassy spokesman denied the allegation, saying: “We have never heard of such a thing.”

The question arose after the Wall Street Journal reported today that the CIA “played both sides of the street in the Mideast” and added: “While published reports say the CIA has given millions of dollars to King Hussein of Jordan in an apparent effort to strengthen relations with Arab moderates, the Wall Street Journal has learned that the agency provided large sums to the Israeli government.”

It said the purpose of the payments to Israel was to finance “foreign aid” projects in African nations “apparently” to bolster “Israel’s political standing on the African continent.” The period of payments, it alleged, included “at least the period” from 1964-1968 and “perhaps beyond.”

The CIA paid Israel, the Journal continued, a total estimated in the millions of dollars. In the late 1960s it said checks for several hundred thousand dollars each were frequently delivered by U.S. government officials to the Israeli Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem. “The money was then to be channeled to the African recipients,” it said.

During the 1960s Israel began to provide both military and technical assistance to several African nations, including Uganda and the Central African Republic, according to the article. “Israel hoped to earn both good will and specific support from the African recipients in voting on Mideast issues in the United Nations,” The paper stated. “Nonetheless, most African countries eventually came to support the Arab cause and in the early 1970s, they began breaking relations with Israel. It isn’t known whether CIA payments to Israel have continued since then,” the Journal said.

DENY IMPROPER CONDUCT BY RABIN

Meanwhile, Israeli sources also denied as “utterly without foundation” another report alleging that Premier Yitzhak Rabin engaged in improper conduct during the 1972 Presidential election. Discussing the Yadlin affair in Israel, financial writer Elliot Janeway commented in last Sunday’s Washington Star:

“It is appropriate that Rabin should be engulfed in an Israeli version of Watergate. He seems to have learned nothing but forgotten nothing from his own participation in it during his tour of Ambassadorial duty in Washington. He accepted and probably met a jumbo-sized quota from CREEP (the Committee to Reelect President Nixon) in defiance of all known standards of propriety, let alone legality.”