Public Figures Urge U.S. Action to Halt Middle East War

Increasing concern over the danger of war in the Midd East was reflected today in statements by American political leaders and by Jewish organizations here and abroad which appealed to the conference of foreign ministers at Geneva to halt a Middle East arms race. The United States was strongly urged to enter a security pact with Israel to guarantee its borders and deter aggression by Egypt.

In Pittsburgh, U.S. Senator James H. Duff declared that “the United States must ente at once into a mutual security pact with Israel to guarantee its boundaries so as to halt the spread of Russian military domination of the world.”

Former Senator Owen Brewster of Maine, Miss India Edwards, vice chairman of the Democratic National Committee, and Magistrate Frederick L. Strong of New York signed a letter published in the New York Times today calling for a two-point program to prevent war in the Middle East. The first step is an immediate guarantee of the integrity of the Israel-Arab armistice demarcation lines by the United States. The second step is for an appeal by the United States, Britain and France to the Soviet Union to prevent a Middle East arms race and enable achievement of peace in the area in the spirit of Geneva.

In Johannesburg, the South African Jewish Board of Deputies and the South African Zionist Federation addressed a joint statement to the conference of foreign ministers at Geneva appealing for measures to halt the Middle East arms race and establish peace there that will secure Israel’s security and unhampered progress. The statement warned that arming of the Arab States was “a grave menace to Israel’s security and to world peace.”

In New York, Rabbi Mordecai Kirshblum, president of the Mizrachi Organization of America, called on all Americans to write or wire Secretary of State Dulles in Geneva urging him to take “the necessary bold measures” to halt the flow of Communist arms to the Arab States.