8 of the 14 Senators Mentioned in Anti-israel Ad Repudiate It

A survey by the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith has found that at least eight of the 14 U.S. Senators mentioned in an anti-Israel newspaper advertisement repudiate both the ad and what they call the implication that they endorsed it. The names of the Senators, who were described in the ad as having shown “courage and foresight” by having “voted no on credits for Phantoms,” were listed in a box at the bottom of the page. The buyer of the ad, Alfred M. Lilienthal, is an outspoken Jewish anti-Zionist who is chairman of the newsletter “Middle East Perspective.”

Sen. Philip A. Hart (D.,Mich.), who repudiated the ad soon after it appeared in the Feb. 22 New York Times, supplied the ADL with that same statement, in which he noted: “I voted against the (Phantom) amendment because it wasn’t necessary. Congress had already approved new assistance for Israel. . . and since they had not yet been spent, I saw no need to authorize more immediately.”

Sen. Margaret Chase Smith (R.,Me.), who also scored the ad after it ran, told the ADL her vote against more Phantom credits was “strictly procedural, in that the measure “proposed an amount that had neither been budgeted nor had it been authorized by the Congress and had not been before the Senate Appropriations Committee. . . .”

Sen. Harold E. Hughes (D.,Ia.), similarly noted he has “consistently supported our long-standing national policy of friendship and adequate aid for Israel,” adding: “I have no intention of changing this policy.” Sen. George D. Aiken (R.,Vt.) said the use of his name in the ad “should in no way imply that I approve of (its) contents.” Sen. Lee Metcalf (D.,Mont.) declared: “The ad. . .is dishonest insofar as my motives were concerned. I do not propose to follow an ‘Arabist’ line or an ‘Israel’ line.”

REJECT IMPLICATIONS OF AD

Sen. Allen J. Ellender (D., La.) commented: “The appearance of my name does not espouse my support for the position advertised elsewhere on the page. I voted against the particular proposal because it duplicated funds which I knew were included in another bill.” Sen. Milton R. Young (R., N.D.) charged that the ad had falsely “created the impression that I was anti-Jewish.” He advised Nat Kameny, chairman of the ADL’s Middle Eastern Affairs Committee: “You should know my position of support for Jewish people over the years. . .I have taken a very favorable attitude towards. . .their justifiable causes.”

Sen. John Sherman Cooper (R.,Ky.) replied: “It is not clear to me what the group that put the ad in the paper had in mind. . .I voted against the (Phantom) amendment on the grounds that sufficient funds for the purchase of aircraft had already been authorized by previous legislation. . .I was not informed by the ad’s sponsors that they were going to use my name. I certainly would not have permitted my name to be used for this purpose.”

Sen. J. William Fulbright (D.,Ark.), a leading opponent of foreign military aid, sent the ADL copies of his speeches and said he had not been consulted on the use of his name “nor aware in advance of plans for publication” of the ad; but he did not comment directly on the text of the ad. By week’s end replies had not been received from Sens. Henry Bellmon (R.,Okla.), Mark O. Hatfield (R.,Ore.), Russell B. Long (D.,La.), John C. Stennis (D.,Miss.) and Mike Mansfield (D.,Mont.), the majority leader.

Lilienthal and the Times have asserted that the listing of the 14 Senators’ names in a separate box was a clear indication that he was not implying their endorsement of the text. Lilienthal has also been criticized by a spokesman for Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D.,Mass.) for the ad’s use of an out-of-context quotation from an unpublished letter by John F. Kennedy that erroneously suggested that the late President endorsed the anti-Zionist’s views. Is Hartmann Really Bormann?