The president of the United Synagogue of America urged President Richard M. Nixon yesterday to intervene with President Georges Pompidou, of France to halt the flow of offensive weapons to Libya “in behalf of Middle East peace.” Jacob Stein said the United Synagogue, the congregational branch of Conservative Judaism in the United States, was appalled by France’s announced sale of modern weapons, including 50 Mirage supersonic jet fighter-bombers, to Libya.
He noted that President Pompidou is scheduled to visit the U.S. next month and asked President Nixon to “impress upon him the grave consequences of his action in contributing heavily toward an arms imbalance in the Middle East and thus playing into the hands of Soviet Russia by adding fuel to the fires stoked by the Kremlin in this strategic part of the world.”
Mr. Stein said the clause in the French-Libyan deal prohibiting the transfer of the Mirages to any third party “is not worth the paper it is written on in view of the record of Libya and her partners in the breach of previous contracts.” Moreover, he said, the French arms deal is a “blatant breach of its own embargo on all belligerents in the Middle East by singling out Israel and depriving her of essential defense material.”
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.
