David Stuart Dodge

By Andrew I. Killgore

David Stuart Dodge might be called a metaphor. A metaphor for the United States in the Middle East. Shortly before he was born in Beirut in 1922 an American commission traveled to the Near East to question the population. Did the Arab peoples recently freed from Turkish rule want British or French "mandates,'' (a euphemism for colonies) supposedly to lead them to ultimate independence? The overwhelming response: Immediate independence was desired, but if there had to be a mandatory power, these Arab peoples wanted it to be the United States. Faith in America could not have been greater.

Credit for this belongs to a remarkable succession of Americans who started arriving in the Middle East about 150 years ago to teach and to heal. David Dodge is a scion of those selfless Americans. His great grandfather, Daniel Bliss, founded the American University of Beirut in 1866, Dr. Bayard Dodge, David's father, whose name is still revered in the Middle East, was President of A.U.B. from 1923 to 1948. David, very highly regarded in his own right and as a Dodge, a name almost synonymous with the prestigious university, was kidnapped in 1982 while Acting President of A.U.B. He was held hostage for a year. The real target of the kidnappers was not a beloved American and a venerated institution, but a brutalizing American policy that has torn the Arab East apart in the name of security for Israel. The message was clear.

A Man of Character and Distinction

If his friends had only two words to describe David Dodge, they might be "true aristocrat.” Like his father, David lives very modestly, when in fact he is wealthy. Like so many of the Christian missionary educators and physicians who gave the United States such a good name in the Middle East, David practices the philosophy of “waste not, want not," His good-natured, self-effacing manner gives little hint that he is a graduate of Deerfield Academy and has earned B.A. and M.A. degrees from Princeton University.

After serving as an officer in Military Intelligence in World War II, David went to work for the Arabian American Oil Company in Saudi Arabia and New York City. For the next 25 years he had a distinguished career with ARAMCO and TAPLINE (Trans-Arabian Pipeline Company), serving 11 years as manager of TAPLINE's Government Relations Department. He used his diplomatic talents and fluency in Arabic and French to negotiate agreements between TAPLINE and the governments of Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. Many of the Arab officials with whom he dealt were not only graduates of the A.U.B., but also long-time friends of the Dodge family.

From 1976 to 1978 David was President of the Near East Foundation (N.E.F.), which provides technical assistance in agriculture and public health to developing countries in the Middle East and Africa. He is now Chairman of the Board of N.E.F., successor organization to Near East Relief, a charitable organization which saved many lives through its relief assistance to Middle East needy in World War I. Dodge family money supported both organizations.

Since retiring from TAPLINE in 1976, David Dodge has taken on another, almost full-time career. He is a Trustee of the A.U.B, and of Princeton University-in-Asia, and Director of the Cleveland H. Dodge Foundation in New York City. At various times in the past he has been Treasurer of the Near East Council of Churches; President of the Propeller Club (the principal American business organization in Beirut); Chairman of the Eisenhower Exchange Fellowship in Lebanon; and Director of the YMCA of Lebanon.

No Animosity Towards His Captors

Now settled at Princeton with his wife, the former Doris Westfall, David works full time as recording secretary for Princeton University. David is reticent about his own kidnapping, but is known to have suffered a rough time in solitary confinement for months on end. He feels no personal bitterness against his kidnappers, realizing he was not their real target. He is deeply concerned for the seven remaining American hostages still held captive in Lebanon. He steers away from public discussion of their fate, except to express his certainty that, as a minimum, they would not be released so long as Israel continued to hold Lebanese Shiite hostages in Israel in violation of the Geneva Convention and contrary to its own assurances last July that all such hostages in Israeli custody were scheduled for early release.

David Dodge and his predecessors built an enviable reputation for the United States in the Middle East. That reputation has steadily declined since 1948. It now awaits the work of a new generation of pragmatic American idealists to restore U.S. standing, based upon scrupulous observance of our own American principles and beliefs. America's Arab friends do not want "to Kill the thing they love"—to borrow Oscar Wilde's despairing phrase—but instead are ready to reach out to us.