The Kennedys and I: JFK’s Bold Words on the Middle East Conflict

By Dr. Alfred M. Lilienthal

Like millions around the world, I mourned the tragic and untimely death of John F. Kennedy, Jr. I will always regret that I never made an attempt to be in touch with the youthful editor of George. I had met his mother and knew his father well.

Back in 1948, I attended the inaugural meetings of the United Nations, the new international organization, being held at the San Francisco Opera House. I was staying at the Manx, a small hotel just below the imposing St. Francis hotel, when the phone rang early one morning, awakening me from a deep slumber. The hotel clerk said that a “Lieutenant Kennedy” would like to see me. “Send him up,” I replied.

It was Lt. John F. Kennedy, recently released from the Navy and now serving as correspondent for the Hearst Chicago Herald-American. Lieutenant Kennedy told me he had read that I had been designated one of three G.I. consultants to the American delegation. The national press had carried this story, which included my photo alongside those of Harry Truman, Winston Churchill, Joseph Stalin and Chiang Kai-shek. It quoted me as saying: “We need an international organization with muscles.”

“I came to get your views on the United Nations Organization which is being drawn up,” said the lieutenant.

Over coffee we chatted a bit. I had been stationed in the Middle East but my experience in World War II was very limited compared to his: He had been badly injured and only barely survived when his PT boat was literally cut in half and sunk by a Japanese destroyer. He still walked with a slight limp.

My next encounter with JFK occurred in 1960 after he appeared on the Longines Chronoscope television program, following a visit to Algiers, and called for Algerian self-determination. He was at that time serving in Congress from Massachusetts.

I sent a note to him in Washington: “Dear John: Resign from that seat in Congress and become a television idol! You were terrific last night. I accidentally fell upon you on the Chronoscope program. I am interested in the area you discussed, as you will note from my enclosed American Mercury article, and was happy to learn that I was in perfect agreement withyour views. Certainly if we are to support independence for Algeria, for which you called, we ought to do something to allow the Palestinians to rule themselves.”

“American partisanship in the Arab-Israel conflict is dangerous.”

I indicated that I expected to be in Washington soon and hoped to have a serious talk with him. He replied, “Please let me know your schedule so that we can get together.” We met at the then-new Hilton Hotel at 16th and K Streets, where we enjoyed a drink together in the bar. He was by far the most charismatic individual I had ever met. We chatted at length about U.S. foreign policy until he had to leave for another appointment.

Later that year, I attended both the Democratic and Republicanconventions in order to once again carry to the delegates my determination to take the Middle East out of domestic politics. I had decided it was best to pursue this goal through personal correspondence with the candidates of the two major parties. In a series of letters written before and after the conventions to the presidential nominees of both parties, then-Vice President Richard Nixon and then-Senator Kennedy, I tried to correct what I believed to be existing, widespread “mythinformation” regarding the Middle East. I also set forth what I concluded to be essentials for the advancement of American relations with the Arabs and Israelis and for the well-being of the free world.

In the first of several letters to the vice president, I expressed deep concern over his recent statement to The New York Times relative to the Suez Canal crisis. I warned him against the grave danger of seeking to make the Republican Party even more pro-Israeli than it had been in previous years.

Disappointing Platforms

As I feared, to my grave disappointment, the Republican platform labeled attitudes and actions of Arab countries as “anti-Semitic” and called for “the cessation of discrimination on the basis of religious beliefs.” In a strong letter to the vice president, I attempted to explain that aside from the semantic absurdity of applying the term “anti-Semitic” to the Semitic Arabs, such a term cannot reasonably be applied anywhere in the Arab-Israeli dispute.

In reply, the vice president wrote: “I enjoyed recalling our meeting so many years ago at a Young Republican gathering.” He then proceeded to refer to Saudi Arabia’s discrimination in not granting visas to servicemen of Jewish faith stationed at the Dhahran air base. In response I stated: “If King Saud lumps together Zionists and Jews as if they were one and the same, this is exactly what most Americans do.”

Previously, on July 5, I had written to my friend JFK at a time I was convinced that he would emerge as the Democratic presidential nominee. I emphasized the fact that the first newspaper interview I had ever granted was given to him at the U.N. conference, noting: “I recall the long talk we had in San Francisco and the burning idealism which showed through your words and thoughts. With this in mind I request you to be strong and valiant on one issue which is so vital to the Western world: the Middle East.”

The only reply I had from him was an obvious form letter expressing appreciation for my support and welcoming my participation in the campaign ahead. Since a secretary obviously had intercepted my previous letter, I wrote Kennedy again after the Democratic convention in L.A. to congratulate him on his great victory. However, I took issue with the platform, which pledged encouragement to “the resettlement of Arab refugees in land where there is room and opportunity for them.” I pointed out to JFK that this was in direct conflict with the U.N. resolution first adopted in 1948 and subsequently readopted by each ensuing General Assembly.

The U.N. position declared that those “refugees wishing to return to their homes should be permitted to do so at the earliest practical date and that compensation should be paid to those not choosing to return.” I emphatically noted the irreconcilable differences between the U.N. directive on refugees and the Democratic platform position calling for resettlement instead of repatriation, and I urged finallythat the “national interest demands that both you and Vice President Nixon enter into an agreement to take the Middle East out of domestic politics and seek U.N. implementation of all the resolutions on Palestine and its refugees.”

The senator replied with thanks and stated that he “would bear my comments in mind.”

On Aug. 25, 1960, as Democratic standard bearer, he came to New York City to address the Zionist Organization of America. The day before his speech, I had sent him a telegram warning him of the consequences of his bowing to Zionist pressure. I quoted Woodrow Wilson’s May 1915 address in Philadelphia, in which the World War I president had stated: “A man who thinksof himself as belonging to a particular national group has yet to become an American, and the man who goes among you to trade upon your nationality is not worthy to live under the Stars and Stripes.”

In a lengthy Sept. 1, 1960 letter, in which I was hardly diplomatic, I wrote, “Dear John: You heeded advisors who would have you play domestic politics with a controversial foreign policy issue. This is a dangerous game which has already destroyed much of the goodwill the U.S. once possessed in the Middle East. Continued U.S. partisanship in the Arab-Israeli conflict can only drive the Middle East behind the Iron Curtain.”

On Sept. 16, I left for a lecture tour of Europe and the Middle East, which to my regret carried me through mid-November. Hence, I missed the exciting session at the U.N. and the first visit to the U.S. of Egypt’s president, Gamal Abdel Nasser. But when I arrived in Beirut to cover an oil conference, having already lectured in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, I foundthe following letter forwarded to me by my office in New York:

September 30

Dear Alfred:

I appreciated having the benefit of your comments upon my talk to the ZOA. I wholly agree that American partisanship in the Arab-Israel conflict is dangerous to both the U.S. and the free world. My program merely calls for using the power of the President to bring the parties themselves to an agreement. For too long a time, this dispute has been a bitter cause of friction between the Arab nations and Israel. I would hope that both would be friends of the United States. Your sobering analysis of my [speech] is provocative of additional thought.

With every good wish, I am

Cordially, John

Thus ended my correspondence with JFK. Three later letters addressed to him at the White House went unanswered, aside from a form reply to my letter of congratulations after his election. He was assassinated in Dallas in November 1963—another American tragedy.

On Feb. 22, 1972, Middle East Perspective, the monthly publication that I then edited and published, ran a full-page ad in The New York Times headlined, “Israel: Our Next Vietnam?” At the head of this letter I quoted from a portion of the final JFK letter: “I wholly agree with you that American partisanship in the Arab-Israeli conflict is dangerous to the U.S. and the free world.”

Zionists, the ADL and the Congress rose up in arms. Even 8 of the 14 senators mentioned favorably in this ad as having opposed credits for Phantom jets for Israel vehemently attacked me for what they called an implication that they had endorsed the “anti-Israel” advertisement. John Furey, the Times’ advertising manager, stated that there “was nothing misleading in Lilienthal naming, in a separate box, without permission, the 14 senators who had voted against Phantoms for Israel.” This, however, did not stem the bitter attack, led by the ADL and the entire Zionist apparatus, which assailed the ad and the quote as “total distortion,” adding that it would be interesting to know who had paid for the ad.

In a special news broadcast and press statement Sen. Edward (Ted) Kennedy of Massachusetts was quick to lash out at what he described as “an out-of-context” quotation. He stated: “It was incorrect to suggest [JFK] opposed aid to Israel. It misconstrues the position of President Kennedy, who was clearly on record as favoring aid to Israel.”

When Senator Kennedy further denied that JFK had ever written this letter to me he was sent a copy of it and asked to refer to his brother’s papersat the JFK Library in Boston.

I never had the pleasure of meeting Robert Kennedy. And I have never known what to make of a United Press dispatch relating that while Sirhan Sirhanwas awaiting sentence for the assassination of Robert Kennedy, he was asked by a reporter what he was doing to fill in the time. “Reading,” he responded. “Anything in particular?” He replied, “I am in the middle of reading Alfred Lilienthal’s What Price Israel?”

When I later met Mary Sirhan, Sirhan Sirhan’s mother, in Brooklyn at the home of a mutual friend, she likewise expressed admiration for that same book.

A few months after I had moved from New York to Washington, I was invited to an art exhibition being held on Capitol Hill. Entering the House elevator, I spotted Senator Kennedy with his sisters Eunice and Patricia. As we got off, I said: “Senator Kennedy, you may remember me. I’m Dr. Alfred Lilienthal, and several years ago we had a correspondence relative to your brother, President Kennedy.”

My attempt to engage in a dialogue elicited only the iciest imaginable stare. Yes, apparently the senator did remember me!

Dr. Alfred M. Lilienthal, the long-time editor of Middle East Perspectives, is the author of five pioneering books about the Israeli-Palestinian dispute and its repercussions in the United States.