Sorensen Says Nixon Initiative in Pushing for Big 4 Solution Could Lead to ‘disaster’

Theodore Sorensen, one-time adviser to the late President John F. Kennedy, declared here that the initiative of President Richard M. Nixon in pushing for a Big Power solution to the Arab-Israel conflict might produce a peace package which “could be the path to disaster.” Speaking at the Derech Amuno synagogue here, Mr. Sorensen also said that “the worst foreign policy mistake of President Nixon’s first year on his own in the White House may well be his effort to Americanize the pursuit of peace in the Middle East.” He declared that the Nixon Administration had been “more energetic about trying to settle someone else’s war” than in settling its own–the Vietnam conflict. He asserted that the United States could be helpful in the Middle East “not by helping to prepare a Big Four package–for two of the four are not really so ‘big’ and their package has more liabilities than assets–but by working primarily with the Soviet Union, the one real power in the area whose interest cannot be excluded even while we hope to minimize her presence, to help the parties to settle (the conflict) themselves.”

He proposed four steps by which, he contended, the Nixon Administration could help to bring about more tranquil conditions in the Middle East while concentrating on the task of settling the Vietnam war. He said the United States should improve the atmosphere for direct Arab-Israel talks, encouraging the two sides “to meet and negotiate on a realistic basis with each other instead of nurturing the notion that our talks will make theirs unnecessary.”

Mr. Sorensen said the U.S. should urge “our Arab friends” to engage in such talks by making it clear to them there was nothing to be gained by waiting and by offering to help them economically and otherwise through the domestic difficulties “they will then face.” A third step, he said, would be to provide both resources and opportunities for settlement of the Arab refugees. He said their number was “in fact small compared to the number of refugees resettled after wars in world history. Most importantly,” he added, “we can stop the supply of outside arms to the Middle East.” He said that if the Soviet Union really wanted peace in the Middle East, “these are the steps to peace.”

SAYS THAT U.S. SHOULD OPEN DOORS TO ARAB REFUGEES, JEWS IN ARAB LANDS

As part of his refugee proposal, he proposed that the U.S. open its doors to a number of the Arab refugees “and at the same time invite the immigration of all those Jews now existing as prisoners or hostages in Arab lands.” He added it was “inhumane” for the U.S. not to help in every way the exodus of all Jews still in Arab states who want to leave.

As one of his objections to the Big Four talks at the UN, he said the U.S. was meeting with two nations–the Soviet Union and France–who have been consistently pro-Arab and anti-Israel and one nation, Britain, likely to yield to any compromise re-opening the Suez Canal and “safeguarding the flow of Arab oil.” He said out of such talks was likely to come a settlement prepared by outsiders which will again trade away Israel’s security, and that again, Israel, as in 1957, will be asked to do “what Arab forces could never make her do–return to boundaries that have proved to be wholly insecure and rely on UN forces and outside guarantees that have proven to be sadly ineffective.” He added that there was a strong possibility that all the hopes and expectations aroused by the Big Four meetings would fail, that neither side would be politically able to accept a Big Four-proposed settlement or able to enforce it, and that the United Nations and the U.S. would suffer another blow “they can ill afford” while “an atmosphere of frustration and gloom will heighten the tension and the prospects of war throughout the Mideast.”