Arens Disputes Remarks Attributed to Him in the New York Times

A sharp dispute has developed between Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Arens and writer Lucinda Franks over remarks she attributed to Arens in a New York Times Sunday Magazine article, published today, which Arens insists he never made.

According to Franks, Arens called U.S. Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger “a prime candidate for psychoanalysis” and suggested that he had “hang-ups” over the fact that he had a Jewish grandfather.

Arens, who saw a copy of the article shortly before its publication, was quoted today by Times’ Jerusalem correspondent David Shipler as saying, “I would have been insane to say these things, even if I thought them. And I don’t think them.”

Shipler reported that Arens telephoned Weinberger yesterday to assure him that he had never made the statements reported by Frank. Arens’ spokesman Nachman Shai, and later Arens himself, called the Times’ Jerusalem bureau to discuss portions of Franks’ article.

Denying the attributions, he declared, “I have a great deal of respect for him (Weinberger) and the way he does his job. There has been a great deal of improvement in Israeli-American relations and Caspar Weinberger played a crucial role in that improvement,” Shipler reported from Jerusalem today.

Arens also denied vigorously that he had offered to return disputed territory to Egypt if the Egyptian Defense Minister would meet with him, as reported by Franks. “This was never my opinion, never my position. This is totally misconstrued,” Arens said.

WRITER STANDING BY HER ATTRIBUTIONS

But Franks, a former reporter for The New York Times, who won a Pulitzer Prize in 1971 as a reporter for United Press International for a five-part series on the radical Weatherman group, is standing by her attributions. Shipler reported that she told him in a telephone interview from New York that her notes confirm what Arens said. Her husband, Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau, who accompanied her at her meeting with Arens in Jerusalem last December, offered further corroboration, Shipler reported.

Arens’ alleged remarks about Weinberger referred to the time the Defense Secretary visited Israel and was accompanied by Arens, then Israel’s Ambassador to Washington, to the Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial.

According to Franks, Arens told her that Weinberger “has a lot of hang-ups about his Jewishness. When we went into the hall where all the names of the concentration camps are etched in stone, we told him that since his grandfather was Jewish, he would be considered a Jew according to the Nazi racial laws. We watched his face for a reaction and there was none.”

Arens told Shipler, “These are just outrageous…Nobody was idiotic enough there to tell him that this (the Nazi laws) would have any reference to him. It is ridiculous.” According to Franks, Arens made the remarks while driving with her and Morgenthau from a Christmas Eve ceremony at Bethlehem.

Morgenthau confirmed her account, asserting that “I heard him say it. I was sitting in the car with him. I was surprised that he said it. But he did say it, there’s no doubt about that … He never said anything about its being on background.”

Confronted with Morgenthau’s confirmation, Arens told Shipler, “I’m telling you it’s outrageous. Absolutely wrong,” the Times correspondent reported.

Arens also denied Franks’ assertion that he had told her that Labor Party leader Shimon Peres was “worse than he appeared.” Shipler reported that the Defense Minister insisted, “I never thought that and therefore I never said it.” Franks conceded later that this quotation was in error. She said that according to her notes, what Arens said was that Peres was one of the few politicians “who appears worse than he is,” Shipler reported. Edward Klein, editor of the Times Magazine, attributed this error to an “editing transposition” but said that “in all other respects I stand behind her story.”

According to Franks’ article, the offer to return disputed territory to Egypt was made by Arens’ aide, Shai. Shai told Shipler that Franks had misunderstood Israel’s position on the issue and that he had never told her Israel would give up the territory if the Egyptian Defense Minister would agree to meet Arens.