American Educational Trust

We Made an Exception…

In this issue to our practice of putting reprints from other publications into our “Other Voices” supplement. On p. 21 you’ll find a reprinted article by the Washington, DC correspondent of the Mobile Register about an Alabama boy who left home first to make waves in the Pacific in World War II, then to make good in the foreign service, and finally to make waves all over again by keeping this iconoclastic magazine financially afloat for going on 19 years. Readers may learn something about this silver-maned diplomat with the incandescent smile who never cut a corner to further his career, and who passed up big money-making opportunities open to retired State Department Arabists to work instead to turn once-proud U.S. Middle East policies back from the disastrous course they have taken at least since the Johnson administration. One thing he didn’t tell the interviewer, but which he did explain in a eulogy to his wife at her interment services at Arlington National Cemetery in 1997, was that “Marjorie and I had a kind of religion of our own: It was justice for the Palestinians.”

We Always Wanted to Share…

That insight into the publisher of this magazine with readers who weren’t present for Marjorie Killgore’s funeral. Now we have. And no, he doesn’t know we’re writing this.

Good News for Impatient People!

We’ve juggled Book Club staffing hours so that we can guarantee your book order will be in the mail no later than the next working day, whether it comes in via telephone, mail, fax, dogsled (the quickest means of access in Washington, DC as we write this) or the Book Club Web site, http://www.middleeastbooks.com/. Our staff has tested this boast with extensive applications of snow and the flu throughout the month of January with no breakdown in service. We’ll also pledge not to be undersold on any current book. In fact it will help us if you challenge us. If you find any e-mail upstart offering a lower price on any current title, we’ll lower ours. We want you to turn to us first not merely because we’re the most deserving people, but also because we’re the best. Try us!

Too Late to Make the Catalog.

We just viewed “Uncivil Liberties,” a highly professional videotaped compilaton of information on the abuses and the victims of the Secret Evidence and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 which adds urgency to the campaign to repeal that pernicious and colossally un-American law. You can obtain a copy of the video at $19.95 plus $5 for postage by contacting the distributor at (703) 920-2968 or www.alif.com. Or you can order it from us for the same price and, if you include it as part of a book order, we’ll cover the postage at no extra expense to you. In our next issue we hope to enclose postcards you can send your representatives in Congress urging them to join the more than 50 of their colleagues who already are co-sponsoring the Secret Evidence Repeal Act.

And Speaking of Postcards…

There was a major goof in the postcards about sharing Jerusalem enclosed in the January/February issue for readers to send their representatives in Congress. We’re not offering excuses, but the defective cards were done by a subcontractor who shipped them to the printer on the night the magazine was being assembled in Richmond and the printer inserted them without spotting the mistake. Anyway, this issue contains a reissue of the same cards.

If You Noticed Last Month’s Error…

It means you were trying to send the cards to your congressmen but had to give up. (A couple of readers told us they were able to send them anyway by gluing disparate sides together. Those are the kind of people who won’t even have to check in with St. Peter or any of his peers from other disciplines. Such virtuous souls are just given a harp and a bag lunch and put directly on the skytrain for the Elysian fields.) But if you didn’t even notice the postcards were unusable…

THIS MESSAGE IS FOR YOU!

It means you haven’t been sending the postcards. To send all three costs only 60 cents per issue, less than the cost of the daily influenza pill we’re taking as we write this, which so far hasn’t done a lick of good. And friendlies in some of the congressional offices report they’re receiving them (cards, not pills) in large numbers. So please, take 15 minutes to write in the three names, affix the three stamps, and drop them in the mail. In the absence of the kinds of persistent visits by delegations of constituents that the other side can mount almost at will, letters or postcards like these are the only evidence many members of Congress get that they have constituents who care deeply about the people of the Middle East and America’s real interests there. Show your representatives that when they do the right thing you’ll be there to back them up. What’s the point of stuffing your head with all this information we smuggle past America’s Zionist media gatekeepers if you don’t do something about it? We’re making it very, very easy, so please mail the cards. Or, since our Southern gentleman publisher isn’t going to see this page in advance, we’ll just say…

Do It, Dammit!

And by the way, it’s not too late to go back through the past few issues and pull out all of the still-unmailed postcards and send them now.

We Received Our First Tear Sheets…

Of reprints of articles from ours and like-minded publications distributed at no charge to U.S. and Canadian newspapers by the U.S.-Middle East News Service (USME), funded by a handful of donors who sent us the money over a year ago and have had to wait this long for the first results. There were huge technical glitches to overcome, but USME articles now are going out regularly to a very large list of editors at a very low cost to us. Thanks to those donors who had faith. And if you see an article by one of the regular Washington Report writers in some other publication, please clip it and send it to us. We don’t require even a tear sheet from editors, so the only evidence we have that the service is getting our articles into the mainstream press are the articles our regular readers spot, clip and mail to us.

Now Our Thanks…

To all of the 1999 donors who kept us going through a very lean year. Names of donors of $100 or more are listed on p. 112. There is an even larger list of donors of less than $100. Believe us, we needed every cent, and we’re running really scared as we start 2000. The next issue will contain the first listing of Year 2000 donors. We hope that many of those planning to donate during the year will do it now, because we’re starting the year badly in debt. We’re hoping, however, to broaden our subscription base with our increase to…

Ten Issues a Year in 2000.

To help with that, we’ve employed a full-time public relations and promotions manager. One of her first jobs will be to revive some of the campus coordinator positions we used to have, but which we allowed to atrophy over the years. They provide an opportunity for an individual or an organization to work for us on university campuses anywhere in the world. For more information use the toll-free number, press 4, and ask for Adila Masood. Or, better yet, call and tell her how you may be able to help make us better known in your area, and whether you are a volunteer or want to become a millionaire. We have ideas for both, and your chances with us are probably no worse than with Regis Philbin.

So Please Mail Those Postcards…

Make your donation as early as you can, think of donating gift subscriptions to friends, relatives, teachers, libraries and media personnel, and help us find some additional paid subscribers