Humphrey v. Extremists

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31780, 10 September 1968, Page 17

Humphrey v. Extremists

(N.Z. Press Assn.—Copyright) WASHINGTON, Sept. 9. Mr Hubert Humphrey opened his Presidential campaign today with a fighting speech pledging to take measures against extremists, both black and white, who spread terror in the nation. The Vice-President also said Mr Richard Nixon had joined up with Senator Strom Thurmond and “some of the most reactionary elements in American society." Mr Humphrey said the compact was “signed and sealed in Miami Beach in full view of the American people.” Departing from his prepared text he said if was a “coalition of the nominee and Mr Thurmond.”

The Demoncratic nominee charged that Republicans and reactionaries were conspiring to block progress by holding up President Johnson’s nomination of Judge Abe Fortas to be Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. His audience, a B’nai B’rith convention, burst into applause when Humphrey charged that the coalition was "working now in the United States Senate on a Supreme Court justices’ nomination.’/ Mr Humphrey strongly endorsed United States military aid to Israel. He said the United States had the “duty to respond” to Israel’s requests for new, modern weapons, including supersonic Phantom jets. He also accused the Soviet Union of “the shabbiest political tactics —a blatant appeal to anti-semitism” in an effort

to justify its invasion of Czechoslovakia. But he devoted the bulk of his speech to defending human rights "against extremists of both Left and Right.” Mr Nixon, also addressing the B’nai B’rith convention, said the United States should negotiate directly with the Soviet Union in a bid to curb Russia’s “active penetration of the Middle East.” He said Moscow’s antiSemitic propaganda, the rapid build-up of the Soviet fleet in the Mediterranean and its provision of weapons to the Arab States were “the clear-cut moves of a superpower seeking domination.” Mr Nixon, charged that the Johnson Administration’s response to these Soviet moves was uncertain and ineffectual. “We shall engage in some direct, hard negotiation with the Soviet Union to remove

one underlying cause of the tension,” Mr Nixon said. Because of Moscow’s systematic rebuilding of Arab armed forces, he said, the United States should supply Israel with supersonic F 4 Phantom jet fighters. But Mr Nixon said Israel should not only be sufficiently armed to deter an Arab attack, but should also have the balance tipped in its favour as long as the threat of such an attack remained. “I support a policy that would give Israel a technological military margin to more than offset her hostile neighbour’s numerical superiority,” he said. Mr Nixon, devoting most of his speech to the Middle East, said a peace settlement should include solid guarantees that the territories occupied by Israel would never again be used as bases of Arab aggression or as sanctuaries for terrorism.