‘Israelis bugged Young meeting’

Press, 21 August 1979, Page 8

‘Israelis bugged Young meeting’

NZPA-Reuter New York An Israeli recording device picked up the conversation between the sacked American Ambassador to the United Nations (Mr Andrew Young) ana a representative of the Palestine Liberation Organisation that led to the resignation of the American diplomat, “Time” magazine has said.

“Time” quoted a United States Government source as saying Mr Young ' had walked right into the espionage network Israel maintains in New York to keep watch on the Palestinians. When Mr Young met the P.L.O. representative, Zehdi Terzi, at the home of Kuwait’s Ambassador, Israeli recording devices had been planted some time before, “Time” quotes the American source as saying. According to the magazine, a senior Israeli source gave , a different version, saying that Israel had obtained details of the YoungTerzi talks not from inside the townhouse, but by intercepting P.L.O. communications.

According to “Time,” the Israelis waited a few days and (hen leaked news of the meeting to the press. It was an Israeli complaint about the meeting that led to Mr Young’s sacking. “Time” says Mr Young, in. an interview, said: “I think the Israelis were after the President, and I think we have desperately got to move the Camp David discussions forward. But Israel does not want to move anywhere. Nobody' in ' Israel is capable of statesmanship at this time because everybody’s playing domestic politics".”

Mr Young said in a television interview at the week-end that the State Department had a report on his July 26 meeting with Mr Terzi four days after it took

: place. This was 10 days earl- • ier than the State Depart- ■ rnent had previously said, he I added. Asked whether he thought ' American intelligence could i have “bugged” his meeting with Mr Terzi, Mr Young said: “No, I really don’t. I think, rather, that . . . everybody knows what everybody else is doing at the United Nations.” A spokesman for the State Department, asked about a report in the “New York Times” that word of Mr Young’s meeting may have come from United States intelligence, said: “No comment.” Mr Young said in the TV interview that the United States policy of not talking to the P.L.0., an organisation that “seems to have the support of a good part of the Arab world,” was ridiculous. Asked to explain why' he thought that, Mr Young said: “Because, essentially, everybody in the United States supports the survival and the integrity of the State of Israel. “The problem is we have slipped over into a kind of expansionism of Israel, where Israeli troops are half-way up into Lebanon, where there are territories occupied by Israel which were not part of the definition of the State of Israel, and we’ve got a lot of grey areas now that are straining for a redefinition of our relationship with the State of Israel.

“It becomes very difficult to take on that political redefinition, especially when you’ve got a Stubborn and intransigent Government.” Mr Young will remain at his United Nations post until a replacement is nominated by President Carter and confirmed by the Senate.