George Meany, president of the AFL-CIO. declared tonight at an. Israel Bond dinner before an audience of 1200 in the Americana Hotel that “we must move now, massively and dramatically, to make America self-sufficient in energy” to prevent Arab oil blackmail from dictating U.S. foreign policy. “What is involved here,” Meany said, “is more than the issue of American support for Israel. If that support is diminished or destroyed by the oil weapon–and that is how the Arabs consider their oil as a weapon–then other American policies can be determined the same way.”
In a wide-ranging speech. Meany joined labor and management representatives, Israeli leaders, Mayor-elect Abraham D. Beame and Mayor John V. Lindsay, in paying tribute to Louis Stulberg, president of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers Union, who received the Israel Prime Minister’s Silver Medal “in recognition of his leadership in the Israel Bond program.”
More than $5 million in Israel Bonds were sold at the dinner, it was announced by the chairman of the labor-management sponsored event. Nat Boriskin, executive director of the Popular Price Dress Manufacturers Group Inc. and Sol C. Chaiken, general secretary-treasurer of the ILGWU. The dinner was co-sponsored by the ILGWU and key representatives of the women’s and children’s apparel industries.
The dinner in honor, of Stulberg was a major high point. in an intensive worldwide effort to provide $642 million through the sale of Israel Bonds to finance Israel’s Development Budget to restore its war-dislocated economy. Ambassador David Rivlin, Consul General of Israel in New York presented the Israel. Prime Minister’s Silver Medal, inscribed by Mrs. Golda Meir to Stulberg.
ENERGY CRUNCH IS SQUEEZE PLAY
In spelling out the importance of overcoming the energy crisis, Meany said, “The American people need to understand that even if the Arab oil embargo is lifted, the price of oil will continue to go up and up and up. It is the old story — squeeze the supply to jack up the price. And other oil companies– American oil companies–are going along with the game. It is very, very profitable. There is no real way out of this problem except to develop self-sufficiency. We must move with the same determination that put a man on the moon. We must do this not just for Israel’s sake–but for our own.”
Emphasizing that “Israel is a trade union country,” Meany. stated: “To us Israel represents the kind of social and economic progress that can be made by a free people, a free working people, in a free government resting on free, democratic institutions. Labor’s commitment to that little land will last as long as our commitment to the values she upholds, and which we uphold in our own land in difficult times.”
Critical of the role of the Soviet Union in the Middle East, as well as the conception of detente, Meany said of the recent October war that Israel was faced with “the most concentrated military force ever assembled in the history of warfare.” He declared that in the last six years, the Soviets gave Egypt and Syria 4000 tanks, “more than triple the number that Adolf Hitler used to invade Russia in World War II–and he had a lot of land to cover as well as millions, of people to conquer.” He added; “Detente, you know is a French word. It means relaxation. In case you do not realize it, that is what the Russian tanks were doing in the Sinai. Relaxing.”
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.
