Ajcommittee Critical of U.S. Cambodia Involvement; Urges Action on Other Fronts

The American Jewish Committee, in a statement sharply critical of the American involvement in Cambodia, declared that “anguish over Indo-China or our urgent domestic needs,” must not blind the United States to “other grave and stubborn problems on the international scene,” including the Middle East. The statement listed the other problem areas as Latin America, Western Europe, the United Nations, the under-developed countries and refugees. The statement warned that the American action in Cambodia “now threatens to increase the already intolerable drain on our human and economic resources; has provoked the most violent and widespread dissent in our country since the draft riots of the civil war; has exposed the Bill of Rights to new strain and peril; and has made all the problems of human relations in the United States infinitely more difficult to deal with. The statement added it was “vital” that the United States “avoid any enlargement of our military participation in Indo-China and pursue unremittingly our announced intention to withdraw our forces from that area,” perhaps even “in advance of the specified time,” which Pres. Nixon said was June 30.