Dissenters Who Serve as Footballs to Be - Kicked in Dispute Over Arms Deal THE JEWISH NEWS A Weekly Review Commentary, Page 2 From the Fragile Sukka an Unshaken Message of Optimism of Jewish Events Editorial, Page 4 COpyrvght 5 The Jewish News Publish og Co VOL. LXXX, No. 7 17515 W. Nine Mile, Suite 865, Southfield, Mich. 48075 424-8833 $15 Per Year: This Issue 35' October 16, 1981 Broomfield. Leads Landslide in the House Against AWACS Wallenberg Bill Is Signed by Reagan WASHINGTON — Congressman William Broomfield (R-Birmingham), the ranking Republican member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, led the debate on Wednesday in opposition to the Reagan Administration's proposal to sell $8.5 billion worth of super-secret AWACS radar aircraft, Sidewinder air-to-air missles and enhancement equipment for F - 15 jet fighter - bombers to Saudi Arabia. Following a three-hour debate, the House voted 301-111 to oppose the sale. As The Jewish News went to press, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee was scheduled to take a crucial vote on the sale. The full Senate must also vote against the sale by Oct. 31 in order to prevent the American weapons from being sold to Saudi Arabia. There was speculation Wednesday, prior to Thursday's Senate committee vote, that the Reagan Administration may try to bottle-up the opposition by working for a tie vote in committee and preventing the bill from reaching the Senate floor in time for a vote by Oct. 31. There were reports that the full Senate vote has been delayed from next Tuesday to the following week, and that the Reagan Administration was consider- ing going through with the sale despite the outcome in the Senate under the President's emergency powers. Nina Lagergren, left, and Guy von Dardel, right, half-sister and half-brother to Raoul Wallenberg, are shown with President Reagan as he signs the bill that made Wallenberg an honorary U.S. citizen. . • • WASHINGTON — President Ronald Reagan last week signed the Congressional joint resolution making Sweilish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg an honorary U.S. citi- zen. Wallenberg is credited with saving up to 100,000 Hun- garian Jews from the Nazi Holocaust and is believed to be still alive in a Russian prison. Sponsors of the measure to make Wallenberg an hon- orary U.S. citizen said it would strengthen the U.S. hand in seeking information about Wallenberg's condition and de- manding his release if he is found to be alive. Soviet officials claim that he died in prison in 1947, but there have been repeated accounts from former Soviet pris- oners that he is still alive. If so, he would be 69 years old. Sweden still lists Wallenberg as missing and rejects the Soviet account that he died of heart failure and the Soviet contention that he was detained as a suspected spy. WILLIAM BROOMFIELD Only two Michigan members of the House of Representatives voted in favor of the AWACS sale. The two Are Republicans Robert Davis of Gaylord and Harold Sawyer of Rockford. John Conyers ( D-Detroit) opposed and. George Crockett (D-Detroit) did not vote. (Conyers is scheduled to speak this weekend before an Arab Anti- Defamation League meeting in De- troit where he is expected to call for VIENNA (JTA) — Austrian Chancellor Bruno Kreisky, shocked closer cooperation between Arabs and angered at the unabashed jubilation expressed by the Palestine and blacks.) • Liberation Organization over the assassination of President Anwar (Michigan Senator Carl Levin, in a Sadat of Egypt, has indicated that Austria's warmly sympathetic at- speech prepared for delivery to the titude toward the PLO may be over. Declaring that "It is unbelievable that somebody is praising a entire U.S. Sentae this morning, will murder,' Kreisky said that PLO chief Yasir Arafat's remarks after charge that the Reagan Administra- Sadat's death might result in "personal consequences" but he declined tion bypassed normal procedures in to elaborate. considering the sale of the highly ad- He did indicate, however, that Austria, the first Western vanced AIM9L (Sidewinder) missiles country to extend quasi-diplomatic recognition to the PLO, was to Saudi Arabia, "thus precluding in no hurry to receive a new PLO representative in Vienna. U.S. personnel from objecting to the Kreisky made his remarks on Saturday, the day of Sadat's funeral. sale." Details of his accusations will The Chancellor's spokesman, Wolfgang Petritsch, said, "We are in be outlined in next week's issue of written diplomatic contact with the PLO. This could mean reconsider- The Jewish News.) ing how the contacts'would be continued." PLO Jubilation on Sadat Murder Sways Kreisky Kreisky said that he and Arafat had "unbridgeable differences" in their assessments of the assassination. According to Kreisky, Sadat Was a victim of his own political miscalculations. "Sadat's tragedy was (Continued on Page 5) Survivor's Case Proves Holocaust Occurred LOS ANGELES —"This court does take judicial notice that Jews were gassed to death in Auschwitz in Poland in the summer of 1944." With that statement, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Thomas T. Johnson ruled last Friday on just one point of a lawsuit against an organization that contends the Holocaust was a myth. But for Auschwitz survivor Mel Mermelstein, 55, the point was the most important part of his suit against the Institute for Historical Review. The IHR, a right-wing group that contended the Holocaust was fabricate d by Jews, had offered a $50,000 reward to anyone who could prove the Holocaust really happened. Mermelstein . contends he submitted proof but that the IHR wouldn't pay. Mermelstein and the IHR had exchanged letters about the offer, which Mermelstein's lawyer, William Cox, contends was a contract for the reward in exchange for the proof. The -udge did not rule on that question and said he was declaring the gassing "a fact and not reasonably subject to dispute" because ef any number of reliable sources other than Mermelstein. He also took virtually all other points of the case under submission. The suit, which originally asked for $17 million, asks for a summary judgment and payment to Mermelstein of $1 million in damages for psychological punishment endured in dealing with the IHR, including a five-hour deposition Cox called "one of the most brutal experiences I've ever sat through." Cox also asked for costs of litigation. A decision on damages is expected this week. Mermelstein, who saw his mother and two sisters led away at Auschwitz in 1944, said that "money was never the thing in my mind in the first place, and whatever the judge ajudicates will be fine with me." 411111R. (Continued on Page 6) MERMELSTEIN Broomfield told the House on Wednesday that Congress must stress that the rejection does not (Continued on Page 12) Nixon Role Is a Surprise, His Comments Were Not By REV. FRANKLIN H. LITTELL National Institute on the Holocaust PHILADELPHIA — Many of my Jewish friends are rightly offended at Richard Nixon's effort to shift the blame for the AWACS fiasco to Menahem Begin and the Ameri- can Jewish community. '- But, as much as I share their resentment of the Reagan-Haig-Nixon ploy, I am astonished at the note of surprise in their voices. I am amazed at their apparent feeling of being betrayed by a friend. Richard Nixon was a bar- nyard anti-Semite long be- fore he learned to manipu- late sections of the Ameri- can Jewish community to further his own ambitions. And he remained one REV. LITTELL (Continued on Page 15)