Weizmann Corrects His Testimony; Misunderstood Question on Admitting 100,000 Jews

Dr. Chaim Weizmann, president of the Jewish Agency, is sending the Anglo-American inquiry committee a correction of part of his testimony at the committee hearings last Friday, it is reliably reported here.

Replying to a question as to whether he endorsed President Truman’s proposal for the immediate admission of 100,000 European Jews to Palestine this year, Weizmann said, “yes,” but asserted that it was not necessary this year. He apparently thought the questioner meant the admission of 100,000 Jewish children, which the Agency has been requesting all along. The correction, which will probably be turned over to the inquiry committee today, will make clear Weizmann’s views that the 100,000 immigration certificates asked by President Truman should be granted, and that it is possible for Palestine to absorb that number now.

Committee members spent the weekend visiting various settlements, enterprises and cities. Co-chairman Sir John Singleton and Judge Joseph Hutcheson visited the Dead Sea region and inspected the settlement of Beth Havara, which is on land from which Dead Sea salts have been washed away. Later they visited Moishe Novomeisky, head of the Dead Sea Potash Company, and discussed Jewish-Arab relations.

Three members of the committee visited Tel Aviv and met Mayor Israel Rokach. Other probers visited the Arab city of Nablus, whose mayor boasted that his city was “pure of Jews.”

Frank Buxton and Richard Crossman called on Dr. Weizmann at his home in Rehovoth. Later, all three strolled along the streets of the town. While in a local cafe, they met three Austrian Jews who had spent five years on the island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean, where they had been detained for attempting to enter Palestine without visas. Buxton and Crossman were greatly interested in the Austrian Jews and at the end of their conversation asked them whether they wished to return to Austria. The answer was a categorical “no.”