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SEPTEMBER 1999, page 154 Publishers’ Page
…the deaths in the July 16 crash of his private plane of 38-year-old John F. Kennedy Jr, his wife Carolyn, and her sister, Lauren Bessette. All were childless, and though all were charming and properly schooled, none were close to fulfilling whatever expectations they had for themselves, or the soaring expectations others had for them. Our private introspection therefore turned to President John F. Kennedy upon whom, like his namesake son, was bestowed “every gift but the gift of years.” …was the title of the chapter describing the 33-month Kennedy presidency in a book we published 17 years ago on American presidents and the Arab-Israeli dispute. It described how in July 1957, in his first foreign policy speech as a young senator, Kennedy said, “If France and the West at large are to have a continuing influence in North Africa…the essential first step is the independence of Algeria.”
…by Republican politicians, the European-oriented foreign policy establishment in New York, and even by such icons of his own Democratic Party as its two-time presidential candidate, Adlai Stevenson, and former Secretary of State Dean Acheson. But Kennedy was only saying publicly what incumbent Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower was saying privately. And the young senator was quietly informed by Ike’s secretary of state, John Foster Dulles, that he had used Kennedy’s words in arguing for a change of policy in Paris. …to hear that hardened Algerian guerrilla fighters against the French had hopefully asked a visiting American journalist about the young senator’s prospects for winning the presidency. Then, when Kennedy took the oath of office in January 1961, Algerian FLN leaders publicly hailed his victory. They achieved their own independence on July 3, 1962 as Kennedy had known they would. That same year, after Algeria’s first president, Ahmad Ben Bella, returned from his first U.S. visit, he “ascribed to Kennedy everything he thought good in the United States,” reported William Porter, Kennedy’s hand-picked Arabist ambassador to Algiers and the foreign service professional who initially had explained to him the Algerian cause.
…with Tunisian President Habib Bourguiba, and then initiated personal correspondence with the most influential man in the Arab world, Egypt’s charismatic President Gamal Abdul Nasser. As a young officer in the 1948 war with Israel, Nasser blamed corruption in the Egyptian royal court for the defective equipment which had contributed to Egypt’s defeat in Palestine.
…and became a symbol of the pan-Arabism that infused the Arab world. But in the lengthy cease-fire negotiations in Gaza, Nasser also had identified an Israeli officer, Yigael Allon, whom he trusted. Knowing this, Eisenhower had tried to set in motion Israeli-Egyptian peace talks, but was frustrated by Israeli Prime Minister David Ben- Gurion. As Eisenhower’s successor…
He sent John Badeau, a seasoned Arabist, to Cairo as his ambassador. And in 1962, when Kennedy felt compelled to make a gesture to the Israel lobby that had helped elect him by providing Israel with Hawk anti-aircraft missiles, he informed Nasser in advance of his action, and his reasons for taking it.
“Nasser liked Kennedy’s ambassador, John Badeau, and he liked Kennedy’s practice of personal correspondence. Kennedy put off, however, an invitation for a Nasser visit until improved relations could enable him to answer the political attacks such a visit would bring from voters more sympathetic to Israel.”
Then, after an assassin’s bullets cut down Kennedy on Nov. 22, 1963, he was replaced by Lyndon Johnson, one of the most pro-Israel presidents in U.S. history, and the downward slide in U.S.-Middle East relations that was briefly halted by Eisenhower resumed.
…Algerian President Ben Bella told American Ambassador Porter, “Believe me, I’d rather it had happened to me than to him,” and that Muslims from all walks of life had genuine tears in their eyes when, from Morocco to Indonesia, they sought out Americans to express their condolences? For years afterward, newspaper photos of the martyred president slowly faded on the walls of humble Arab homes.
…assassin Lee Harvey Oswald was murdered by Jack Ruby, an American Jew with gangster connections. So a generation of Arabs grew old convinced that only an Israeli plot against the young American president with an instinct for reconciliation had halted an initiative that would have ended the spiral of violence that has consumed so many precious lives, resources and dreams in the Middle East. There is no evidence whatsoever that Kennedy’s death was connected to the Arab-Israeli dispute. But there are many reasons to believe he might have stopped it before it was too late if, like some of his well-meaning successors, he had not…
…Don’t come too often in a staff as tiny as ours. But our glamour girl from Gaza, Raja’ Abu Jabr, who came to the U.S. on a Fulbright scholarship that required an internship and then stayed for an extra year to be our public relations and advertising director, went home reluctantly when her student visa expired. Never one to waste a moment, she became engaged there, but hopes to return in the fall to enroll in the Ph.D. program to which she’s been accepted at a Midwestern university. Samia El-Mahdi, whose Mona Lisa smile and calm and cheery demeanor masked computer smarts, great work habits, and a B.A. in Middle East studies, ended her productive year as our circulation director to enter law school right here in Washington, DC. And Michael Lee, patient Book Club manager, unwearying chronicler of Middle Eastern lectures and events, indefatigable traveler to conventions across North America, and holder of an M.A. in Middle East studies, also has left us in pursuit of a dream of even more writing and scholarship and significantly less book wrapping, mailing and shlepping.
We’ll tell you about their successors, two sisters and a scholar, in a forthcoming issue. Wanted (Badly): a Bigger Choir!Our 1999 Choir of Angels has more than doubled since our May 15 fund-raising appeal. But the cash on hand didn’t. We’re not yet in sky-is-falling mode, but we are quietly desperate because we can’t get from here to the Nov. 15 appeal without a lot more help. If you meant to donate but didn’t in May, or mean to in November, please, please DON’T DELAY ANY LONGER. We can’t skip an issue in order to make it to the end of the year—as we did in 1996 and 1997—because it messes up the circulation computer so badly that it doesn’t save us money. But printers don’t operate on credit and we have bills to pay right now. Please dig promptly and deeply and… |
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