Jarring: ‘premature’ to Write off Peace Mission; Nixon: Mission Still ‘valid Initiative’

Ambassador Gunnar V. Jarring said through a spokesman today that it was “premature” to write off his Middle East peace mission because of the death of Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser. There were unconfirmed reports that President Nixon had said aboard his ship on the Mediterranean that the United States peace initiative, which relaunched the moribund Jarring mission, was now dead. U.S. sources said today that it was still “a valid initiative”. The Big Four ambassadors were scheduled to meet again tomorrow in what a source close to them described as a state of “acute awareness” of the developments in the Mideast. The Big Four deputies met again this morning on the question of peace implementation guidelines. The president of the General Assembly, Dr. Edvard I. Hambro of Norway, called Col. Nasser “a statesman of far-reaching views” whose death is “particularly tragic and untimely.” U.S. Ambassador Charles W. Yost said Mr. Nasser “has been a great leader of his people for almost two decades, in times of triumph, in times of tragedy.” and that “he will be profoundly missed.” A foreign diplomat at the UN called Mr. Nasser “a statesman of the first rank, a towering figure” whose departure from the world arena is “a major setback” to peace.