Secret talks were begun here today between Prime Minister Levi Eshkol and Dr. Kurt Birrenbach, a member of West Germany’s Parliament, who came here last night ostensibly on a secret, personal mission for West Germany’s Chancellor Ludwig Erhard. Dr. Birrenbach, a prominent German industrialist, is a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Bundestag, lower house of Bonn’s Parliament, and a member of Dr. Erhard’s Christian Democratic Party.
Dr. Birrenbach spent most of last week in Washington, where he discussed the current Bonn-Jerusalem crisis with highest American Administration officials, including Secretary of State Dean Rusk; McGeorge Bundy, adviser to President Johson; William Foster, chief of United States disarmament, and others. His American mission was repotedly concerned primarily with Bonn’s decision to halt further arms deliveries to Israel. He was recalled from Washington suddenly, leaving for Israel yesterday.
While Prime Minister Eshkol’s office here declined today either to confirm or to deny the meeting with Dr. Birrenbach, who has been called “Erhard’s secret envoy,” it became known that Mr. Eshkol, Foreign Minister Golda Meir and other high officials of the Israeli Government conferred last night on Dr. Erhard’s announcement in Bonn yesterday, offering full diplomatic relations to Israel and castigating Egypt’s President Nasser but affirming continuance of Bonn’s diplomatic relations with Cairo.
There has been no official reaction here, thus far, to the Erhard statement, but knowledgeable sources see Dr. Erhard’s announcement as a move rejecting strong Nasserist pressures and as a diplomatic victory for Israel in the face of Nasser’s blackmail. However, no official Government statement here is expected until the Erhard statement and its implications are fully clarified.
KNESSET TO DEBATE BONN’S OFFER OF DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS
There was every likelihood of a full debate on the German-Israel issues in the Knesset, Israel’s Parliament. Some leading Israelis have raised the question whether it would be useful to link Germany’s offer of diplomatic relations with insistence that Bonn first honor fully its commitment to send arms to Israel. Others have raised the issue of Bonn’s failure to act for the recall of the German scientists at work in Egypt on weapons of mass destruction to be aimed ultimately at Israel.
(Abba Eban, Israel’s Deputy Prime Minister, said on a television interview broadcast from Washington last night by the National Broadcasting Company that it has always been his government’s position that establishment of full diplomatic relations with Israel should be considered only after Germany had taken the initiative toward such a move. Now that Bonn has acted, he said, Israel “should respond.” However, he declined to say whether Israel would lay down any conditions prior to accepting the diplomatic offer made by Dr. Erhard.)
The Israel press today commented freely on the new developments stemming from Bonn. With reports coming in that the Birrenbach mission to Israel has been complemented by another Erhard mission to Cairo, to explain the new developments to the Egyptian Government, the Israeli press viewed the entire Bonn-Jerusalem-Cairo crisis as a single issue.
Haaretz, independent morning newspaper, said editorially: “Even those among us who cannot accept the idea of the normalization of relations between the Jewish people and Germany cannot deny the favorable significance of the German step in our dispute with Egypt. It will dim Nasser’s lustre in Arab eyes.” Another morning paper, Haboker, stressed the same point.
Herut, organ of the right-wing party by that name, said today that Israel ought to reject Germany’s offer of diplomatic relations or, at least, set a condition that the German scientists must be recalled from Egypt. Hatzofeh, Orthodox newspaper, emphasized that the most important issue was still Israel’s security and Bonn’s delivery of arms to Israel, noting that “apparently, Bonn has not changed its mind on that issue.
A spokesman for Mapam indicated that his party would continue to oppose Israeli diplomatic relations with Germany. An official of another labor party, Andut Avodan, declined to comment fully on Germany’s new stand but said that “surely, diplomatic relations cannot be a substitute for arms deliveries from Germany.”
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.
