De Gaulle Urges Four-power Meeting on Middle East Crisis; Would Bypass the U.N.

President Charles de Gaulle proposed today a four-power conference of the United States, the Soviet Union, Britain and France to seek a solution to the current Middle East crisis.

The French President’s plan, which would bypass the United Nations, currently a main forum of the effort to prevent the situation from exploding into war, was made known today at a press conference by Georges Gorse, the French Information Minister. He spoke after a day of intense activity here which included a meeting between Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban and Gen. de Gaulle, and a meeting of the French Cabinet it which the President presided.

The Information Minister insisted that France was “not hostile to the U.N. Security Council dealing with this issue but preliminary agreement must first be reached by the Big Four.” (British Foreign Minister George Brown, who is now in Moscow, was reported today as having sought to persuade Soviet officials in Moscow to cooperate in finding a solution to the Middle East crisis. British Deputy Foreign Minister George Thomson flew to Washington today for urgent talks on the Middle East with Secretary of State Rusk and others. Mr. Thomson, in charge of Near East affairs for the British Government, made the trip following a British cabinet meeting.)