A Banquet of Cold Shoulder

It was a standard answer to a routine question asked all visiting Arab states men -- so standard, in fact, that even the New York Times, which is notably sympathetic to Israel, lodged it in the last paragraph of a story on page 12.

Everyone at Washington's press lunch knew how Saudi Arabia's King Feisal would reply to a reporter's query about the Arab boycott of U.S. firms doing business with Israel. "Unfortunately," said Feisal, "Jews support Israel, and we consider those who provide assis tance to our enemies as our own enemies." Feisal's comment went down as smoothly as couscous.

SOS from Sardi's. In Washington. But not in New York City, where there are 41 times as many Jews (1,800,000) as there are in Tel Aviv. Within 20 hours, city hall operators logged 1,677 calls, all but 19 demanding that Mayor John Lindsay call off a scheduled dinner for the King. Candidates in this week's primary elections quickly denounced the hawk-beaked desert monarch. Nearly every major Jewish organization pronounced itself outraged. Protested Dore Schary, national chairman of the B'nai B'rith Anti-Defamation League: "We believe it unseemly for New Yorkers to say that he is welcome. The city's tribute should be reserved for those who come to us in friendship."

Lindsay--who had won major support from Jewish voters in November --retreated to Sardi's, where he put in a post-midnight SOS call to Dean Rusk. Lindsay suggested that Feisal could "clarify" his remarks, or stay away from the dinner with a diplomatic illness, or, all else failing, agree to a mutual cancellation. The King was not interested. Next morning, the day on which Feisal was to be feted in New York, Lindsay canceled the affair, which, by some stroke of wit or innocence, was to have been held in the Blumenthal Patio of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Governor Nelson Rockefeller, up for a third term, also refrained from paying Feisal a scheduled courtesy call.

Welcome Rebuff? A similar New York snub of Feisal's half brother, the former King Saud, by Mayor Robert Wagner in 1957 nearly precipitated an international incident. But no one appeared overly perturbed last week. The Waldorf rolled out the usual red carpet for the visiting monarch, the 35th-floor presidential suite was made fit for a King, and Feisal appeared content to dine (on cold shoulder?) in his quarters. "I think," said a Saudi official, "the King is above being angered by something trivial like this."

Feisal, in fact, may have been just as glad. New York's official rebuff hardly negated the warm welcome he had received from President Johnson in Washington, his interested visits to Williamsburg and other historic sites, or the friendly applause he was to hear at the U.N., where U.S. Ambassador Arthur Goldberg dutifully attended a banquet for the King. Indeed, the furor effectively countered charges by leftist Arabs, led by Egypt's President Gamal Abdel Nasser, that Saudi Arabia was merely a tool of the U.S. "On balance," mused a State Department expert, "this probably helps him in the Arab world."

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