Pompidou Snubbed

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32233, 27 February 1970, Page 13

Pompidou Snubbed

(N.Z PA -Reuter—Copyright) WASHINGTON, Feb. 26. President Pompidou of France, held an hour-long talk with the United States Secretary of State (Mr William Rogers) at the State Department last, night to review the year-long search by the four Great Powers for an Arab-Israeli settlement. But the State Department’s brie f account of the meeting did not say whether United States concern over France’s recent sale of more than 100 Mirage jets to Libya had been raised. Mr Pompidou will meet President Nixon at the White House later today. When President Pompidou addressed Congress yesterday about 200 members of the House and 40 senators were absent. In his 25-minute address, Mr Pompidou criticised Israeli raids against the Arabs, expressed disappointment with the pace of Vietnam peace negotiations, and spoke of the strength of French-American relations. The French leader’s empha sis on continued friendship between the two countries, in spite of long standing policy strains, was greeted with loud applause, but his reference to the Middle East and his defence of French policy was received in dead ' silence.