Missile Out Of Control

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28217, 4 March 1957, Page 9

Missile Out Of Control

(Rec. 11 p.m.) WASHINGTON, March 2. The Defence Department said last night that a guided missile fired from the missile test centre at Patrick Air Force Base. Florida, went out of control. There were no casualties.

A spokesman would not give details of the incident.

Before the Cabinet met today Mr Ben-Gurion instructed his chief of staff. Major-General Moshe Dayan, to postpone until tomorrow the meeting he was to have had today with the United Nations Force Commander, Major-General E. L. M. Burns. This meeting had been expected to arrange details of the Israeli withdrawal and the United Nations take-over. The Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman today disclosed that General Dayan told General Burns that the meeting was cancelled because negotiations in the present situation would be premature. General Dayan promised to arrange a new meeting time, when the situation was clearer. Meanwhile, General Burns has ordered the Indian Battalion of the United Nations force to mov£ to El Arish. near the IsraeliEgyptian border, from Sandura, in readiness to follow up the Israeli withdrawal. Mr Ben-Gurion, quoted in a message to the “Sunday Dispatch.'’ said that before withdrawing Israeli troops from either the Gulf of Aqaba or the Gaza Strip, Israel required concrete guarantees that vessels of all nations would be free to move through the Straits of Tiran to the Israel port, Eilath, and that on no account would Egyptians be allowed to return to the Gaza Strip. Mr Ben-Gurion said: “The distressing element in our current situation is that our struggle is not against an enemy but against a friend—the Government of the United States.” In Tel Aviv tonight an Israeli military spokesman said that six Arab infiltrators had been killed in clashes between Israeli patrols and Arab bands on the way from Jordan to the Gaza Strip, after infiltrators had opened fire, when ordered to halt.