Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, August/September 1997, pgs. 121-122

Publishers' Page

With Great Sorrow We Report...

The death of Marjorie Nicholls Killgore, wife of the publisher of this magazine. Her obituary is on the following page. The staff and writers of the American Educational Trust and the Washington Report extend their condolences to Ambassador Andrew I. Killgore, his four children and six grandchildren on the loss of a devoted wife, mother and grandmother, who made many personal and financial sacrifices to make this publication possible.

As We Go to Press...

Responses to our May 15 funding appeal are pouring in. The first day there were a couple of phone calls; the next day several phone calls and some letters. Then came a weekend, and since then we've had to keep track of the response by measuring the height of the daily pile of envelopes. We think it's peaking at...

Six Inches a Day for the Past Week.

At this writing the size of our 1997 Angels' Choir has doubled (see complete listing starting on page 119) from the listing in the previous issue, and as it continues to grow we'll repeat the listing in each of the issues we print during the remainder of this year.

You Won't See the Names...

Of all of our current donors in those listings. Corporations request anonymity (they've experienced Zionist blacklisting) and so do some individual donors, large and small. The most common reasons cited are that they are on active U.S. government civilian or military service, don't yet have university tenure or fear retaliation from an employer. (Reasons not admitted, we suspect, are fear of retaliation by spouses who would rather spend the money on something else, and hope by certain optimistic retirees that if they stay in the closet they will be called back any day now to serve as chief of staff, secretary of state, or a replacement for White House political consultant Dick Morris.) And then there are the paranoids, like us, who really do have enemies.

One Donor, With No Mideast Ties...

Began to get harassing phone calls after a few years of listings as a hummer. So this year she went anonymous and donated 10 times as much.

That Is So Quintessentially American!

For which we thank God! And that's why people like her are going to take back our country, why peace with justice is going to win, and why the thuggish harassers are going to lose, hopefully before they've dragged the U.S. into another war or two and turned Mother Earth into a lifeless cinder in space.

And More Than Half of the Donations

Aren't big enough to qualify for a listing in the choir. But let us say here and now that without all those "little guys" and "little gals" we wouldn't have had a chance of making it to the end of the year. The average donation (or is it the median, we always get mixed up) has been $140. The largest individual donation so far in response to this appeal was $2,000 (with an anonymous foundation donation of $5,000) and the smallest was $8 (with a note about financial reverses) from a donor who put his own stamp on the postage-paid envelope to save us the cost.

We Also Don't Want to Forget...

The two respondents who promised that, if they win the lottery, half goes to us, and the one who said we'll get it all. We haven't yet recorded your names in our Angels' Choir, but when your numbers hit, don't forget that God probably did. Also, we've decided that we're only going to take half of that third respondent's winnings, because with half of all three jackpots, that's all we'll need.

While We're All Waiting, However...

We hope that if you haven't yet had time to stuff something into that return envelope, you will. Another few weeks like the past three and we'll definitely make it to the end of the year, albeit by skipping one issue this fall. Whenever our readers yank us off the tracks just as the speeding train comes round the bend, we always choke up. Anyway, thanks, everyone, for not giving up.We'll Make You Proud You Didn't!

One Way We're Doing That Already...

Is with our library donation packages. The package is $150 worth of books about the Middle East. (See the description on the final page of the Book Catalog, p. 110 in this issue.) Libraries that pay for their own subscriptions to the Washington Report get a package when they renew this year. Libraries that receive donated subscriptions don't get the package unless someone donates the package as well, at $20 per package. (We mail the collection directly to the library to which you donate it, but the librarian in turn has to assure you, or us, that the books will go into the circulation or reference collections, and not end up on the rummage sale table.) There's no better (or cheaper) way to get a serious collection of Middle East-related books into libraries all over the United States. And for us there's no better time for you to donate library packages, since we're blessed for three short months with summer interns who do most of the packing and shipping.

Making a Hit Without Really Trying.

We sort of slipped our latest, 280-page book, Seeing the Light: Personal Encounters With the Middle East and Islam, into circulation without any fanfare in May. In fact, we're still planning a do at the National Press Club to introduce some of the 74 authors to the national press...

But Just Haven't Gotten Around to It.

We sent copies, however, to those 74 people who wrote how they reached their present frame of mind on the Middle East and the United States in articles in this magazine, which in turn became the 74 chapters in the book. We also sent the book as a thank you to members of the 1995 Angels' Choir, and to exactly two journalists, nationally syndicated columnist Charlie Reese and San Antonio columnist Maury Maverick, as a thank you since we've reprinted so many of their columns. The Reese review got us 30 orders from one reader alone. You can read it in "Other Voices" on page 116. But now here's why...

This Book is Important to You!

We all know that anyone who isn't half-witted or bigoted (maybe that's a redundancy) and who personally visits the Middle East sees the light in a hurry about the theft from the Palestinians of their nation. But very few Americans can make such a personal visit, and that's frustrating if there's someone near and dear to you who hasn't seen the light.

So Give Them This Book and They Will!

Unless, of course, they are half-witted, bigoted, or don't take time to read it. The joy is that they don't have to read all 74 chapters before the light shines. Probably any two or three chapters at random will do, and some chapters are only two or three pages long. The further delight is that the book is self-reinforcing. If someone reads an honest media article about the Israelis and the Palestinians, it may awaken doubts about the conventional wisdom.

But Then All the Additional Rubbish...

In the mainstream media quiets those doubts. This book contains true stories by such wildly different people as a rabbi, an ex-Mossad case worker, one of America's most popular writers of the 1930s, and two teenagers from Pakistan, yet each reinforces the conclusions of the others. It also has a cross-section from the American melting pot that is bound to include someone like any recipient you select, from a university student to an octogenarian. So if this year's birthdays and anniversaries are over, buy a bunch for Christmas gifts. And perhaps family reunions and meetings with friends soon will be duller and more relaxed. By the time they've all read this book, they'll understand you and probably agree with you about the Middle East, even if they've never set foot outside the old home town.

Mad When We Don't Use Your Articles?

We have virtually no space except for our regular correspondents. We need a replacement New York correspondent and still need regular reports on local Islamic, Arab-American, Peace and Justice and University Middle East center activities from Northern California, Michigan, Illinois and Florida. Otherwise...

The Sure Way to Be Published...

By us used to be to give us your own "Seeing the Light" story. Now that the book is out, however, that's no longer fail-safe. What will be surefire for the next couple of years will be your own experience in the media, academia, government or elsewhere with what we'll tentatively call "pro-Israel McCarthyism." We'll start (in the next issue) with an experience of our own to show you what we want. We hope when we're finished would-be writers won't be mad anymore and we'll have another eye-opening book for Americans who think...

"It Can't Happen Here."

These can be a very useful manual for those to whom it has happened, still is happening, or may yet happen on how the Zionist Joe McCarthys work, and how to protect yourselves against them. Although, like oil on water, they seem widely spread throughout the media and government, the coating is very thin and we believe it can be rendered...

Harmless by Exposure to Light!

Interviewing Archbishop Philip Saliba

For the story on p. 26 of this issue, Southern California correspondent Pat Twair found the archbishop was surprised that this magazine was in perilous financial straits. When he asked how he could help, she told him to get his people to subscribe. He seemed even more astonished.

"Don't They?" He Said. "They Should!"

Well, we're not sure what percentage of our readers are Antiochian Orthodox Christians, but since he assures us there are a total of 800,000 of them in the U.S., obviously there's room for growth there. We hope the many Orthodox Christians we already have among our readers will supply us names of fellow communicants to whom we might send this or the next issue. Better yet, we'd be delighted to send you extra copies at no charge to distribute, with your minister's blessing, to appropriate persons in your church or church study groups.

If This Issue Came To You Unsolicited...

That's probably why. We hope you'll subscribe. Sixty thousand paid (full-rate) subscribers is our present goal. When that happens, readers who can't afford it no longer will have to scrape up $8, $80 or $800 contributions just to keep us afloat from year to year. We need new subscriptions, which create potential future supporters, more than anything else in the world. Try to give us a gift subscription right now and...

Make a Difference, This Month!

SIDEBAR

Marjorie Nicholls Killgore

Marjorie Nicholls Killgore, 77, former instructor in sociology at the University of Alabama and later a volunteer remedial reading teacher in Washington, DC public schools, died June 3 at Sibley Memorial Hospital in the U.S. national capital. She was the wife of Ambassador Andrew I. Killgore, publisher of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs for the past 15 years, and a retired U.S. career foreign service officer.

Mrs. Killgore, who held an M.A. in sociology from the University of Alabama and was the first woman member of the university's sociology department faculty, left that position in 1948 when she married Mr. Killgore, who had been a Naval Officer in World War II.

Over the following 32 years she accompanied her husband on foreign service assignments in Frankfurt, London, Beirut, Jerusalem, Amman, Baghdad, Dhaka, Tehran, Bahrain, Wellington, and on three separate State Department assignments in Washington, DC. Their final overseas post was in Doha, where Mr. Killgore served as U.S. ambassador to the State of Qatar.

After Ambassador Killgore's retirement from the foreign service, in addition to her work as a volunteer tutor two days a week in inner city schools, Mrs. Killgore was a volunteer with the Welcome to Washington organization, which assists diplomatic families arriving in the U.S. national capital. She also traveled frequently with her husband, who worked for two years as an international consultant before co-founding the American Educational Trust to promote mutual understanding between the United States and countries of the Middle East through publishing books and periodicals and acting as a national clearing house for books on the Middle East.

Mrs. Killgore died of complications of Lyme disease originally acquired during her residence in New Zealand.

She was born in Shawmut, Alabama, and took her B.A. as well as her M.A. at the University of Alabama. Her first husband, Capt. Barry Nicholls, died in 1946 at Aberdeen, MD, while on active duty with the U.S. Army. Survivors include twins from her first marriage, Elizabeth N. Krieger of Houston, TX, and Andrew N. Killgore of McLean, VA, two daughters from her second marriage, Dr. Jane G. Killgore of Bemidji, MN, and Roberta K. McInerney of Washington, DC, a brother, Ben Donald Davis of Valley, Alabama, and six grandchildren.

A memorial service will be held at 10 a.m. Thursday, July 3 at Arlington National Cemetery with interment to follow. Rather than sending flowers, persons wishing to express sympathy may send contributions to the DACOR-Bacon House Foundation, 1801 F St. NW, Washington, DC 20006, or to the American Educational Trust Library Endowment, 1902 18th St. NW, Washington, DC 20009.