Ford Tells Jewish Leaders That the U.S. Will Sell Egypt C-130s

President Ford made it plain to a dozen Jewish community leaders yesterday that his Administration will complete the sale of six C-130 troop transport air craft to Egypt and thereby end the 20-year U.S. embargo on delivery of American military equipment to that country.

However, he left uncertain wheither he will direct the sale involving about $40 million to be on a government-to-government basis which is seen by opponents of the deal as symbolizing the opening of a U.S. military supply relationship with Egypt, or by a commercial arrangement with the aircraft manufacturer, the Lockheed Company, which would not require Congressional sanction.

Rabbi Alexander Schindler, chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, who headed the delegation, met with reporters after the 85-minute meeting with Ford at the White House and told them he has “no idea what the Jewish community will do” now. Schindler said that the Jewish leaders came to the White House to express concern about the sale of arms to Egypt, although “we certainly sympathize with the overall thrust of American foreign policy which seeks to separate moderate Arabs from more radical Arabs” and “therefore fully support economic aid to Egypt.”

He pointed out that “we were silent and made no fuss” when Ford and Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger pledged two nuclear plants to Egypt during President Anwar Sadat’s Washington visit last October. The Jewish leaders, Rabbi Schindler said, “nevertheless have serious reservations” on the transfer of the military aircraft because, although that fact will not tip the power balance in the Middle East, the sale is a “symbolic act that represents the beginning of a policy that reverses the American policy” going back to the mid-1950s.

Arming Egypt, Schindler observed, is not to be seen just in a bilateral Egypt-Israel relationship but in the context of Arab arming. During 1975 Israel received $1.3 billion in arms, he said, while the Arab countries obtained in “actual shipments” $14-$15 billion in equipment of which about half were from the Soviet Union and the rest from Western sources, including the U.S.

FORD REAFFIRMS U.S. COMMITMENT TO ISRAEL

Schindler said that Ford reasserted the American policy of the need to help Sadat and Egypt and of encouraging the moderate forces among the Arab leaders to draw them into the U.S. orbit. The President also said “over and over again.” Schindler added, that his Administration is committed to Israel and despite Israeli-American disagreements, the President continues to hold the conviction he has held all his life, a conviction attested by deeds and not words.

In this connection, Schindler said Ford denied the report by Edward R.F. Sheehan in Foreign Policy magazine that he had told Sadat he favored Israel’s withdrawal from territories occupied since the Six-Day War. Schindler said the President stated he had made no promise to Sadat and has always been consistent with Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 and has never said anything different to anybody.

The meeting was attended by Kissinger, Brent Scowcroft, National Security Council chairman, David H. Lissy, associate director of the President’s Domestic Council, and Robert Goldwin, a special consultant to the President. Jewish representatives included Max M. Fisher, David M. Blumberg, Yehuda Hellman, Rabbi Arthur Hertzberg. Jerold C. Hoffberger, Harold Jacobs, Mrs. Charlotte Jacobson, Arthur Levine, Mrs. Rose Matzkin, Rabbi Israel Miller, Jacob Sheinkman. Rabbi Joseph P. Sternstein, and Elmer L. Winter.

Some of those attending observed that the President was well prepared on the facts taken up at the meeting and indicated they were impressed with his self-confidence and leadership.