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Click on this text to listen to, and watch, a conversation between LBJ and his White House handler Walt Rostow (JEW) regarding
the outbreak of the "Arab-Israeli War (June 5, 1967). At 4:46 in the video you will see LBJ's handler David Dubinski (JEW)
sitting in the Oval Office on the phone... The USS LIBERTY massacre perpetrated by Israel occurred 3 days after this particular
phone conversation...
____________________________________________________________________________________ LBJ LBJ was on board with the assassination of JFK as someone who would stand to gain the world,
as he perceived it, by JFK’s demise. LBJ’s main contribution to the operation was to sign Executive
Order 11130 and appoint Allen Dulles as the actual lead committee member on the Warren Commission.
The Warren Commission, named for
Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren (Chairman), was the investigative body that purposely incorrectly determined
how JFK was murdered. Warren, a doddering old fool at this point, didn’t
do much at all during the investigation, nor did committee members Senator Richard Russell of Georgia,
Senator John Cooper of Kentucky, House Majority Leader Hale Boggs, nor former World Bank President John
McCloy.
But Jewish
Zionist Arlen Spector, an attorney from Philadelphia, was recommended by Gerald Ford to be the Junior Counsel
for the Warren Commission and a lead investigator. The aggressive and ambitious Spector was a major player
in the whitewashing of JFK’s murder. BTW: Spector eventually
became a senator from Pennsylvania, was a political chameleon that flip-flopped from Democrat to Republican
then back to Democrat whenever convenient and strongly advocated gay rights, supported affirmative action
and supported illegal immigration amnesty.
House Minority Leader from Michigan, Gerald Ford, was a big help to Dulles and even sponsored the “magic bullet” baloney that Arlen Spector and Norman Redlich invented which was accepted as plausible by his
fellow “investigators.” Ford was so helpful with the white washing of the investigation
that he was eventually maneuvered into the vice-presidency and
ultimately the presidency as a reward. Thankfully, Ford did not win his
bid for a second presidential term because of his pardon of Nixon being his first act as president. Americans
were self-righteously angry at Nixon for lying about something as trivial as the Watergate break-in and
Ford suffered for it.
At least six of the fifteen lawyers working on
the Warren Commission were Jews: Arlen Spector, Samuel A Stern, Wesley Liebeler, Melvin Aaron Eisenberg,
Norman Redlich and David W. Belin. Of the twelve individuals on the Warren Commission support staff, six
were Jewish.
Norman
Redlich later became Chairman of the National Governing Council of the American Jewish Congress and was later in
life known to become incensed at the very mention of JFK conspiracy theories. BTW: The American Jewish Congress suspended activities on July 13th, 2010 after being relieved of operating
funds by Wall Street uber-scammer Bernie Madoff.
So basically, LBJ made the main assassination orchestrator, Alan Dulles, the main orchestrator
of the cover-up surrounded by willing stooges. Now, why would LBJ do that knowing what had transpired between JFK and Dulles if he wasn’t totally on board?
Four days
after JFK’s murder, Johnson signed the National Security Action Memorandum 273 which essentially
confirmed JFK’s Vietnam withdrawal policy.
It would take the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, which occurred nine months later, to drag the
nation into the Vietnam quagmire. The Gulf of Tonkin Incident was a fraud, or false flag, a manufactured incident
perpetrated on August 2nd, 1964 designed to rally the American masses to war in South-East Asia; a war
that America shamefully lost after ten years of dirty fighting with 58,000 Americans killed and 240,000
wounded. If you were to ask why we were fighting in Vietnam at the
time, the usual answer was, “we are there to stop communist aggression, if Vietnam falls all of South
East Asia will fall under the jackboot of godless communism,” which was as big a crock of bullshit then as
fighting Al Qaeda is today.
There is no statute of limitations on murder, especially mass murder and barbarity on the scale of
which was perpetrated upon the innocent citizenry of Vietnam by “We the People” of the United
States of America. The perpetraitors of the Viet Nam debacle got away with their evil war... But there is always
hell to pay. Let’s examine some of the players who were
pressuring Johnson into and escalating a full scale protracted war in Vietnam... besides the usual Joint Chiefs
of Staff... and Robert S. McNamara who was surely qualified (wink, wink) to become the 8th Secretary of Defense
because he had been a Lieutenant Colonel in the Army Air Corps during WWII; and he was the first non-Ford-family
president of the Ford Motor Company prior to being selected as Secretary of Defense by
JFK. The Rostow brothers, the sons of Jewish Russian socialists,
were a big influence on LBJ. Eugene V. Rostow was Dean of the Yale Law School when he was asked to become
LBJ’s Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs. Walt Whitman Rostow had been JFK’s Deputy
National Security Advisor and became LBJ’s National Security Advisor on April Fool’s Day (how poetic), 1966 until January 20, 1969. Walt had served with the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), under the “Father of American Intelligence,” William “Wild Bill” Donovan, during WW II as part
of a committee that selected German targets for U.S. bombardment.
The
incendiary bombing of Dresden horrors can be laid at Rostow's feet.
Immediately after Germany’s unconditional surrender, Walt became Assistant Chief of the German-Austrian Economic Division in the U.S. Department of State in Washington. He then became the Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Europe in 1947. We can easily deduce that Walter Rostow was one of the key players in the murderously punitive Morgenthau Plan that was perpetrated upon the demolished and helpless
German nation.
Walt
Rostow was considered a staunch anti-communist, which doesn’t ring true considering the man’s parents were Russian born socialists. He was very prominent for his role in shaping U.S. foreign policy in Southeast
Asia during the 1960s. Jewish German-born Henry Kissinger replaced Walt Rostow as U.S. National Security Advisor beginning with the Nixon administration.
Zionist Jew Leslie Gelb
was the director of Policy and Planning and Arms Control for International Security Affairs at the Department
of Defense from 1967 to 1968, and was the director of the Pentagon Papers Project (McNamara’s secret
history of the Vietnam conflict).
Gelb became president of the Council on Foreign Relations in 1993 and was made the President Emeritus in
2012. He co-authored a laughably ridiculous book titled, "The Irony of Vietnam: The System Worked." Henry Kissinger was chosen by Nixon; or
rather Nixon was directed to choose Kissinger because of his experience as a Harvard mover and shaker in
the Department of Government and at the Center for International Affairs. He was a consultant to the National Security Council’s Operations Coordinating Board in 1955 and 1956, and the Study Director in Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations at the same time. Kissinger worked for the Rockefeller Brothers on their
Special Studies Project where he directed the Panel on International Security Objectives and Strategy. Henry’s Jewish Harvard buddy, Milton Katz, directed the Panel on International
Economic and Social Objectives and Strategy for the Special Studies Project. Katz had been the general counsel to
the European headquarters of the Economic Cooperation Administration, which was part of the punitive Morgenthau
Plan, and eventually became the chief of the reconstruction oriented Marshall Plan.
A Jewish elitist journalist, Walter Lippmann, was LBJ’s most trusted informal advisor who was even presented the Presidential Medal of Freedom by LBJ on September 14th, 1964. Lippmann’s catch-phrase, "Manufacture of Consent" could be
best illustrated by the Gulf of Tonkin Incident that occurred six weeks prior to his receiving the medal.
Lippmann and political scientist, Gabriel Almond, published what was to become known as the Almond-Lippmann
Consensus that was based on three assumptions: 1. Public opinion is volatile,
shifting erratically in response to the most recent developments. Mass beliefs early in the 20th century
were “too pacifist in peace and too bellicose in war, too neutralist or appeasing in negotiations
or too intransigent.”
2.
Public opinion is incoherent, lacking an organized or a consistent structure to such an extent that the views
of U.S. citizens could be best described as non-attitudes.”
3. Public opinion is irrelevant to the policy making process. Political leaders
ignore public opinion because most Americans can neither “understand nor influence the very events
upon which their lives and happiness are known to depend.” I
think the third assumption says it all regarding politicians’ attitudes towards their constituents...in other words, “Let them eat cake while we do what we want.” And his point #2 is spot-on correct...!
___________________________________________________________________________________________________

How LBJ's Vietnam War Paralyzed His Mideast Policymakers By
Grace HalsellIn the summer of 1967, Iwas a staff writer for President Lyndon B. Johnson at the White
House. I was aware of that year's Middle East crisis but, like most Americans, understood little about it other
than the fact that it involved Jews and Arabs. In that year I did not know a single Arab, and possibly LBJ did
not either. Like most Americans, I was pro-Israel, Israel having been sold to most all of us as the underdog. Everyone
around me, without exception, was pro-Israel. Johnson had a dozen or more close associates and aides who were
both Jewish and pro-Israel. There were Walt Rostow at the White House, his brother Eugene at State, and Arthur
Goldberg, ambassador to the United Nations. Other pro-Israel advisers included Abe Fortas, associate justice of the Supreme
Court; Democratic Party fundraiser Abraham Feinberg; White House counsels Leo White and Jake Jacobsen; White House
writers Richard Goodwin and Ben Wattenberg; domestic affairs aide Larry Levinson; and John P. Roche, known as
Johnson's intellectual-in-residence and an avid supporter of Israel. Everyone around me, without exception,
was pro-Israel. I did not "know," but could sense, that events of great
portent were transpiring. I heard rumors of CIA Director Richard Helms sending a warning to LBJ that the Israelis were
about to attack, and the president getting word from Moscow that if the Israelis attacked any Arab country, the
Soviets would go to that nation's defense. I could see the comings and goings of Abe Fortas
and Arthur Goldberg, and I knew that Walt Rostow, in particular, had close Israeli connections, and met frequently
with Israeli Embassy Minister Ephraim (Eppy) Evron. On occasion I saw a strikingly attractive
blonde woman who, I learned, was an ardent supporter of Israel and a woman of whom the president was fond. Her
background sounded like material from a spy novel. She was born Mathilde Galland in 1927in Italy, where she was
reared as a Roman Catholic. Then, when her family returned to her father's birthplace in Switzerland, she became
a Lutheran. While a student in Geneva, she fell in love with a young Bulgarian Jew, David Danon,
who had been brought up in Palestine and exiled by the British for his association with the Irgun Zvai Leumi, a Jewish
terrorist group led by Menachem Begin. Danon was studying to become a medical doctor, but spent most of his time
recruiting and carrying out secret Irgun operations throughout Western Europe. In later interviews
with former Time reporter Donald Neff, Mathilde said that as a teenager she saw Danon as a dashing and
heroic figure, an activist dedicating his life to the founding of a Jewish state in Palestine. He was a personal
friend of the Stern Gang terrorists, led by Yitzhak Shamir, who killed British resident minister Lord Walter Moyne
in Cairo during World War II, and the Irgun terrorists who blew up the King David Hotel in Jerusalem in 1946,with
heavy loss of life. As bloody as these actions were, Mathilde said, she saw them as heroic. They represented the
depth of the convictions of Danon and the Irgunists—and drew her to them. Mathilde became
so enamored of the Jewish struggle and of Danon's daring undercover operations in Europe that she converted to Judaism
and married Danon. Then she, too, became an Irgun agent. Reporter Neff, in his book entitled Warriors
for Jerusalem: The Six Days That Changed the Middle East, documents Mathilde's role as a young "gun-runner"
for the Jewish terrorist group. "As a seemingly innocent petite and pretty blonde out for a bicycle ride
along Switzerland's borders," wrote Neff, "she in reality was taking messages and explosives into neighboring
France and Italy—to be passed on to the Irgunists. Five years after the creation of Israel
obviated the need for pretty blonde gunrunners, Mathilde received a Ph.D. in genetics at the University of Geneva
in 1953.She and Danon then moved to Israel, where she became a cancer researcher at the Weizmann Institute. After
the birth of a daughter, she and Danon separated. While still at Weizmann, however, she met and later married
the rich—and 20 years her senior—Arthur Krim, a motion picture executive who became finance chairman
for the Democratic National Committee. American Jews such as Krim and Abraham Feinberg—a
New York banker and the first Jew to become a prominent moneyraiser in presidential campaigns—were by then bringing
in well over half of the Democratic Party's funds. Thus it was natural that such fund-raisers would become very
important to many Democratic candidates—and particularly to the leader of the Democratic Party, Lyndon B.
Johnson. LBJ often invited the Krims to his Texas ranch. There also were many instances in which
Arthur and Mathilde were guests at the White House, and other times when, for many days running, Mathilde—without
her husband—was a guest there. The Krims built a house near the LBJ ranch known as Mathilde's house, and
Johnson often traveled there by helicopter. Advice and Counsel LBJ Part 2
The Krims, as well as other Jewish Americans who were
closely associated with Johnson, advised and counseled him on the events leading up to the Six-Day War of June
1967. On the Memorial Day weekend in May 1967, Mathilde and her husband were guests at the LBJ ranch. On arrival
at the ranch, Johnson learned that the Soviets had warned the U.S. that if Israel attacked an Arab state, the
Soviets would go to the aid of that state. The State Department was preparing a message for LBJ to send to Israel. While
awaiting the draft message, Johnson got behind the wheel of his Lincoln Continental and took Mathilde and Arthur
Krim for a drive over the hill country. They were at a neighbor's house when an aide brought Johnson a message
drafted by the State Department for Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol. It relayed to Israel Moscow's warning that "if
Israel starts military action, the Soviet Union will extend help to the attacked party." After
reassuring Eshkol of America's interest in Israel's safety, the draft message cautioned: "It is essential
that Israel not take any preemptive military action and thereby make itself responsible for the initiation of hostilities."
The president strengthened the warning by adding two words so that the sentence read, "It is essential that
Israel JUST MUST NOT take any preemptive military action. . ." On June 3, Johnson traveled
to New York to deliver a speech at a Democratic Party fund-raising dinner. He moved on to a $1,000-a-plate dinner
dance, sponsored by the President's Club of New York, whose chairman was Arthur Krim. While at the table, fund-raiser
Abe Feinberg leaned over the shoulder of Mathilde Krim, seated next to Johnson, and whispered: "Mr. President,
it [Israel's attack] can't be held any longer. It's going to be within the next 24 hours." On
June 4, Johnson went to the home of his close adviser and friend, Justice Abe Fortas. The following day, June 5,
Rostow woke Johnson with a phone call at 4:30 a.m. "War has broken out," Rostow said. The Israelis had
attacked Egypt and Syria. Mathilde Krim was a guest at the White House and, before going to
the Oval Office, and apparently before waking Lady Bird or notifying anyone else, Johnson dropped by the bedroom
where Mathilde was sleeping and gave her the news: "The war has started." At 7:45 a.m.,
Johnson talked—for the first time—on the hot line with Moscow. Soviet Premier Aleksi Kosygin expressed
the hope that the United States would restrain Israel. Both leaders vowed to work for a cease-fire. On
that day—June 5, 1967—I walked the White House corridors as the telephone lines and news tickers recorded
developments of the first morning of the war that would change the Middle East. I learned that in the war's first
hours, Israeli planes had destroyed the air forces of both Egypt and Syria on the ground. Unconcealable
Glee LBJ Part 3
Several U.S. officials in a State Department Operations Room briefing could not conceal
their glee over Israel's successes. With a wide smile, Eugene Rostow said, "Gentlemen, gentlemen, do not forget
that we are neutral in word, thought and deed." At the State Department's noon briefing
on June 5, press spokesman Robert J. McCloskey repeated those words for reporters. (Since the U.S. was not neutral
but totally supportive of Israel, however, this statement would need—over the next several weeks—endless
clarification.) Also on June 5, Arthur Krim wrote a memo to the president saying: "Many
arms shipments are packed and ready to go to Israel, but are being held up. It would be helpful if these could be released."
Johnson got the shipments on their way. Walt Rostow, in a memo to the president, referred to
the results of Israel's surprise attack on Egypt and Syria as "the first day's turkey shoot." On June
6, in another memo to the president, Walt Rostow recommended that the Israelis not be forced to withdraw from the
territories they had seized—short of peace treaties with the Arab states. "If the
Israelis go fast enough and the Soviets get worried enough," he wrote, "a simple cease-fire might be
the best answer. This would mean that we could use the de facto situation on the ground to try to negotiate not
a return to armistice lines but a definitive peace in the Middle East." Mathilde Krim,
still a guest in the White House, left for meetings in New York. Before departing, however, she wrote out a statement
supportive of Israel which she asked the president to deliver "verbatim to the American people." Johnson
was sufficiently impressed with her comments to, later in the day, read some of them to Secretary of State Dean
Rusk. But the president did not, as she had asked, read them to the American people. Jordan,
treaty-bound to come to the aid of Egypt and Syria if either were attacked, had done so and, on June 7, Israel
captured the Old City of Jerusalem. Also on June 7, Wattenberg and Levinson wrote in a memo to Johnson that the
U.N. might attempt "to sell Israel down the river." They urged LBJ to support Israel's
claim to the territories seized militarily. They referred to McCloskey's statement that the U.S. was neutral,
suggesting LBJ issue a statement affirming total support for Israel which, they said, might stop American Jews
from meeting in Lafayette Square to protest the "neutrality" statement. While Johnson never
minded getting pro-Israel advice from such close friends as Mathilde Krim or Abe Fortas, he apparently resented
advice from relatively minor White House staffers such as Wattenberg and Levinson. Seeing Levinson he stormed: "You
Zionist dupe! You and Wattenberg are Zionist dupes in the White House! Why can't you see I'm doing all I can for
Israel! That's what you should be telling people when they ask for a message from the president for their rally."
As LBJ abruptly stormed off, Levinson reports, he stood there, "shaken to the marrow of my bones." Meanwhile,
on the night of June 7, the USS Liberty , a Navy "ferret" ship equipped to monitor electronic communications, had approached within sight of the
Gaza Strip so the National Security Agency personnel aboard could intercept the military communications jamming
the airwaves. The president retired at 11:30 p.m., but White House logs reported that at one minute to midnight
he got a call from Mathilde Krim, still in New York. By June 8, despite U.S. and Soviet demands
for a cease-fire, the Israelis were planning one more attack to take Syria's Golan Heights. Perhaps to prevent
U.S. intelligence from learning of their plan, despite Syria's acceptance of the cease-fire, the Israelis dispatched
planes to the USS Liberty. One roared over the Liberty so closely that the portholes of the aircraft's
reconnaissance cameras were clearly visible. Lieutenant James M. Ennes, deck officer, saw on its wings Israel's
insignia, the Star of David. The Liberty Assault LBJ Part 4
Ennes glanced at the U.S. flag atop his ship's tall mast.
If he could see the Israeli pilots in their cockpits, he reasoned, the pilots could certainly see the large U.S.
flag. It was not long after the last of several such Israeli reconnaissance flights, however, that an Israeli
aircraft swooped down and fired rockets directly at The Liberty. Rocket fragments and 30mm bullets punched
through the heavy deck plating—and through the flesh of the stunned crewmen. Then more planes—with
cannon and napalm—turned the Liberty into a floating hell of flames and screaming men. The
Israeli attacks killed 34 Americans and wounded 171. The ship was partly flooded when an Israeli torpedo boat
hit the U.S. ship with a torpedo below the water line. Another machine-gunned the ship's life rafts when the crew
tried to launch them. Only by a miracle did The Liberty remain afloat. But its threat
to Israel's plans was finished. The next day, June 9, Israeli forces attacked and captured the Golan Heights. On
Saturday, June 10, the war's sixth day, Israel agreed to a cease-fire. It was Rostow who first
notified Johnson of the assault on the Liberty. Asked who did it, Rostow said he did not know. Later the
Israelis said they had done it, by mistake. Johnson sent an immediate report to Kosygin that the Israelis
had torpedoed a U.S. ship. Thus the Kremlin now knew about the Israeli attack, but the American people did not.
From the beginning, the Johnson administration covered it up. Surviving crew members were separated from each other
and the Navy was ordered to make certain that no survivor talked with any reporter—or to anyone else—about
the assault on the USS Liberty . It went virtually unnoticed. Not only the crew of the USS Liberty , but all Americans were victims. Johnson and most of those who entered and left the Oval Office were oriented toward
Israel. For that matter, I too, was ready and eager to believe in 1967 that the Arabs, not the Israelis, had started
the war and that the bombing raid on the USS Liberty was not intentional, but a mistake. While
there can be no moral justification for the White House cover-up orders to the Navy after the assault on the Liberty,
from hindsight Johnson's political motivation is obvious. It was the same motivation that led him subsequently
to listen to the Jewish friends and advisers who urged him not to put any pressure on the Israelis to relinquish
territories they had seized in the Six-Day War. In 1967, President Johnson felt he needed all
the support he could get to I 'win" in Vietnam. Many American Jews were liberals outspokenly opposed to the
war there. Johnson was told if he gave all out support to Israel—which would include ignoring the Israeli
attack on the Libertyinfluential Jewish Americans would stop opposing his Vietnam policies. In
a memo to the president, Wattenberg, whose parents had moved to the U. S. from Palestine and who was known as
a strong supporter of the Jewish state, said flatly that if the president came out with strong support for Israel,
he would win American Jewish support for the war in Vietnam. Many American Jewish leaders are "doves" on
Vietnam, Wattenberg wrote, but "hawks" on a war with Arab states. A "Bonus"
for Johnson LBJ Part 5
"You stand to be cheered now by those (American Jewish leaders) who were jeering
last week," Wattenberg wrote the president. He added that the Mideast crisis could be "a bonus" for
Johnson. All-out support of Israel, he predicted, would "help turn around 'the other war'—the domestic
dissatisfaction about Vietnam." The support given by the American Jewish leaders "was
welcome to the president," as reporter Donald Neff observed, when at every turn he was being attacked by critics,
particularly in the media, of his Vietnam policy. I was, at the time, a typical American. I
was convinced back then that the Arabs had started the war and deserved what they got. I didn't try to reason
how, if the Arabs had started the war, they were surprised with their air forces on the ground and how it was that Israel
so easily seized all of Palestine, including the rest of Jerusalem. Instead, like millions of Americans, I was
thrilled by the might of "little Israel." Yet, despite the euphoria around me, what
I saw in the White House planted questions in my mind. As Americans we had just passed through a dangerous Middle
East conflict that threatened to explode into World War III. There were two parties to the conflict, Arabs and
Jews. But for weeks on end I had seen only one set of advisers who could call or see Johnson whenever they pleased.
The Arabs had no voice, no representation, no access, whatsoever. It was only later that I
came to reflect on how America, which devoted so much of the efforts of its "best and brightest" to the
problem of Vietnam, had in 1967 quite unwittingly stumbled into a Middle East quagmire that, long after the fall
of Saigon, would continue to enmesh U.S. soldiers and diplomats, and project an image of double standards and insincerity
onto U.S. diplomacy all over the world. Far more than his failed policies in Vietnam, the Middle East policies that LBJ
allowed to fall into place in the June 1967 war would remain to haunt the U.S. for decades to come. Grace Halsell, a Washington-based writer, is the author of
Journey to Jerusalem and Prophecy and Politics, as well as several other works of nonfiction.
___________________________________________________________________ LBJ, Fortas, Krim &
Israel Dec 19 2008
History News Network, 12/19/08 – Given the context in which he operated—the necessities of the Cold War tilting the United States
toward conservative Arab states; a U.S. public opinion far less favorable to Israel than what exists today, when both nations
face the common threat of radical Islamist terrorism—LBJ was the most pro-Israel President in U.S. history. Johnson concluded his presidency by authoring the selling
of Phantom planes to Israel. Continuing with some clips from the newly released LBJ tapes, LBJ discusses the matter in this
conversation with Abe Fortas (who the President had just nominated as chief justice for the Supreme Court). Johnson lashes
out at Missouri senator Stuart Symington—making the transition from a stalwart Cold Warrior to among the most effective
Senate critics of Cold War foreign policy. The discussion
also offers insight into the pro-Israel lobbyists with whom LBJ associated—Abe Feinberg, a major Democratic fundraiser
from New York who had close ties to the Israeli government; and Arthur Krim, an entertainment lawyer who would serve as
a chief fundraiser for the LBJ Library. Clip is below; draft
transcript below the fold. PRESIDENT JOHNSON: I’ve
got to make a decision on those [Phantoms], and I want to make it as soon as—far enough ahead of time, before I go
out [of office], not to be the last thing. But I want the
Russians to turn me down on disarmament. I’ve got a letter in his [Alexsey Kosygin’s] lap now. And this idiot of a [Stuart] Symington has sent us word that if I don’t give Israel
the Phantoms, that he’s going to kill our [foreign military] sale bill, where we can sell planes. If I don’t
go ahead and give ‘em to ‘em [the Israelis]. And
I can’t do it until Kosygin answers me. He’s not going to pee a drop with me: I know that. But I’ve got
to have that behind me so I’ve got that as an excuse. [I can] say, “By God, I’ve tried everything. I tried
a conference, I tried a proposal, I tried letters, I tried meetings, I pled with him. And finally he turned it down, and
I just—there’s no other alternative. I have no course in the world except this.” ABE FORTAS: Yeah. That’s right. PRESIDENT JOHNSON: And that’s what I’m trying to do. Now, I never have told anybody I’m going to give ‘em to ‘em [the Israelis]. But I made up my mind
a long time ago I was going to give ‘em to ‘em. But I’m not going to give ‘em to ‘em unless
I can protect myself. I’m not going to be a goddamned arms merchant! I’m going to make them [the Soviets] to
be the outlaws if I can. FORTAS: Sure. I think that’s
very good. PRESIDENT JOHNSON: Now, that’s what I’m
trying to do. And this little Eppie is the only one I think
that’s got sense enough in their organization to see it. He sees it all the time. He’s just as bright as that
goddamned [unclear] dog of mine. He catches everything that comes along without telling him. So he helps. But Symington is just the biggest muddlehead I ever saw. I thought you and Clark Clifford
could advise somebody. [teasingly] Are all of your clients muddleheads like me and Symington? [Fortas laughs heartily.]
I don’t understand it. FORTAS: Well, Stuart is absolutely
one. I don’t know—he’s just got . . . Hell, I just don’t understand. Is this [issue] this fellow
Solomon now? PRESIDENT JOHNSON: No, no! Solomon’s a
smart cookie. He’s bound to have plenty of sense. No,
no. I think he [Symington] just wants to be head of the Israel—get credit for ‘em. And they think, you know—the
ones that don’t know think you ought to. I haven’t
had one goddamned bit of trouble with a fellow like Eppie [Evron, Israel’s ambassador to the United States] or [Abe]
Feinberg. They’re smart. [Arthur] Krim. FORTAS: isn’t
this fellow Feinberg wonderful? PRESIDENT JOHNSON: He is just
the finest I ever saw. Except Krim. Krim’s the best man. FORTAS:
Oh, yes. Well, he’s just— PRESIDENT JOHNSON: Krim’s
the smartest. Krim’s the only one that I know of that’s like you. Feinberg is damn near like you, but Feinberg’s
got a little eye on business. He goes over there and sells his Coca-cola. [Fortas laughs.] And he looks after his bank a
little bit— FORTAS: Yes. PRESIDENT JOHNSON: —and I don’t even think . . . This Krim is as pure as any
person I ever saw. FORTAS: He really is. PRESIDENT JOHNSON: He’s got a soft voice. He has none of the aggressiveness that
you would associate with a Wall Street lawyer. FORTAS: He
really is a fine man. PRESIDENT JOHNSON: [with Fortas concurring]
He’s no oversell, no overkill. He sits here . . . I see him damn near every week, and he comes down here—he
was here last night (I came down here)—because I just like to listen to him. He’s so soft, and sweet, and kind,
and soothing. I let him see every damn document that comes in. He reads anything. I never have heard of one little thing
he ever said. FORTAS: Yeah. Well, he’s a saint.. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________  Abraham Feinberg
(1908-1998) is best known lobbying for the state of Israel and organizing Harry S Truman's "whistle-stop" fundraising tour that saved his 1948 presidential campaign from certain ruin. Feinberg's obituary hints at a role trafficking arms to Jewish fighters in Palestine. As founder of Americans for Haganah and Foundry Associates, Inc., Feinberg was deeply involved in the Haganah arms smuggling network in the United States. More recently, authors such as Anver Cohen and Michael Karpin document in the book "Israel and the Bomb" and "The Bomb in the Basement" Feinberg's role in undermining US nuclear nonproliferation policy. On October 31, 1958 Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion noted in his diary a conversation "he had with Abraham
Feinberg, a wealthy Jewish businessman and major Democratic fund-raiser" to raise funds for Israel's nuclear weapons program among "benedictors" in the United States.
A few years later, President John F. Kennedy fought for biannual international inspections of Dimona and verifiable Israeli assurances that it was not
a nuclear weapons production
facility. In 1960 Feinberg funded the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) as it mounted US disinformation campaigns about Israel's nuclear weapons program. JFK's assassination in 1963 marked the gradual end of inspections and the US nonproliferation drive toward Israel. Feinberg's file reveals the FBI's ongoing law enforcement interest in Feinberg's activities as an espionage (offense code 54) threat from the time he
was investigated for dodging the WWII draft, arms trafficking through the front company Foundry Associates, and on into the early 1960's over frequent meetings with Israeli
intelligence officers. In 1952 Feinberg, acting as president of the lobbying newsletter Israel Speaks, (a successor publication to Haganah Speaks) was ordered to begin registering
as an Israeli foreign agent. Feinberg and his close associate David Wahl considered selling it to the Jerusalem Post, but later closed it down rather than register. Wahl, among other Feinberg
associates, was a longtime undercover
Soviet agent (beginning in the 1930's, code named "Pink") in the United States. FBI surveillance coverage of Feinberg
stops during a period reporter Seymour Hersh
characterizes as Feinberg's moment of greatest influence over US policy: the Lyndon B. Johnson administration.
In the late 1970s Robert J. Lipschutz
obtained the FBI's Feinberg
file under the authority of the Carter administration.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________- Front Page of Pacific Stars and Stripes, October 4, 1963 The Stars and Stripes newspaper
reported six weeks before his assassination, as he planned ahead for the 1964 election, that JFK had sent Defense Secretary
Robert McNamara and head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Maxwell Taylor to Vietnam on an “inspection”
mission to provide a basis to accomplish his own pre-established objective: To bring 1,000 of the military advisors home by that
Christmas, and to bring all the remaining men back after his reelection, by the end of 1965. Colonel L. Fletcher
Prouty, who served under the Joint Chiefs of Staff as “Chief of Special Operations”
during the Kennedy Administration, wrote a lengthy memorandum to researcher Harold Weisberg
in May, 1991 (the full document appears on page 2 of this essay) with the front page of the
above article attached to it. He expressed “surprise” that this very important
information, embodied in National Security Action Memorandum (NSAM) #263 was ignored by practically
all historians. In summary of this document, he explained that JFK had begun planning in May
or June of 1963 to absolutely withdraw 1,000 men by the end of the year and all the rest by
the end of 1965, regardless of the state of the war. He explained how the trip by Secretary
McNamara and General Maxwell was merely “just for headlines” when they returned
with a “report” that had been written by Bobby Kennedy and Marine General Victor
Krulak. The New York Times on October 3rd downplayed
the same story (among other newspapers, and people, like Noam Chomsky, still repeat) , under the headline “Vietnam Victory by the End of ’65 Envisaged by U.S. —
Officials Say War May Be Won if Political Crisis Does Not Hamstring Effort.” That single
headline, like the story itself, twice stated that only a “victory” by South Vietnam
would result in bringing troops home. Professor Chomsky — self-identified as the “smartest
man alive” and brilliant beyond description — has still not read and comprehended
this essential point, since he has repeatedly stated that he never studied the JFK assassination
because “it made no difference in the direction of U.S. foreign policy.” According
to the document that he has ignored for decades, the difference was that, instead of bringing
15,000 men home in 1965, in the decade that began that year, 10,000,000 men were sent into
that absurdly meaningless morass. No difference? As
this document attests, it was never JFK’s intention to condition withdrawal on “winning” the war: he intended to pull all of the advisors out regardless of how the Vietnam Civil War (as it was then) played out; that point has been well established many years ago by a number
of researchers.[1] That not-so-subtle difference in how these two versions of the
same story was rendered was not nearly the last time this deceit was asserted. But the Times
version — a false meme at the time — morphed into the accurate version when President
Kennedy was assassinated and Lyndon B. Johnson took the reins of power, after which the question
of pulling troops out would always be connected to “winning” it. Within days of becoming president Lyndon Johnson started down the road of Americanizing
the Vietnam War by reversing Kennedy’s plans to withdraw from it by 1965. Instead, Johnson began
the escalation during that same period and continued, all during his reign in the White House,
to steadily increase US military presence and commitments, even as he publicly lamented how
he had “inherited” the mess. LBJ Choreographs the Americanization of the Vietnam Civil War Shortly after he became President, Lyndon Johnson tasked his National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy with drawing up a joint operation with South Vietnam to “bully” North Vietnam into attacking U.S. Navy warships as the means to provoke a clash that would
ensure his long-desired plan to Americanize the Vietnam War. That
plan was set to begin, not coincidentally, exactly three months before the 1964 presidential
election, as a way to guarantee a patriotic “rush” and thus ensure his victory. Yet
the North Vietnamese leadership sensed a set-up and balked; there was no attack on either the
USS Maddox or USS C. Turner Joy — both Navy destroyers sent at Johnson’s direction into the Gulf of Tonkin for the very purpose of provoking a confrontation. The original incident on August 2, 1964, if it occurred at all, was little more than
“a shot across the bow” set off by a local commander, not by anyone of rank in North
Vietnam. Two days later, the reality was that the only military action involved imaginary boats
engaging in a phantom three-hour “battle” that had more in common with modern-day video games than reality. The only shots taken—hundreds of high-explosive shells
fired by American guns—were wasted as they fell into the sea. Commander James Stockdale, after spending the night flying over the Maddox and Turner
Joy, reported on his return: “No boats, no boat wakes, no ricochets off boats—nothing
but black sea and American firepower.” He also stated that he and other pilots were shocked
when they realized the next day that the tenor of the messages emanating from Washington did
not appear to acknowledge that there had been no attack. During all of the confusion (it isn’t
clear whether it was the cause or the effect), the communications network virtually collapsed
due to the number of FLASH messages being transmitted; this caused the overloaded system to
slow to a crawl. Among the messages which should have stopped the panic, sent by the senior
officer aboard to officials in the Pentagon, the State Department and the White House stated:[2] REVIEW OF ACTION MAKES MANY RECORDED CONTACTS AND
TORPEDOES FIRED APPEAR DOUBTFUL. FREAK WEATHER EFFECTS AND OVEREAGER SONARMEN MAY HAVE ACCOUNTED FOR MANY REPORTS. The only thing that attacked the Maddox
or Turner Joy was bad weather conditions; the confusion was caused by a frantic crew primed
to expect an imminent attack; they did not realize that their commander in chief had a hair-trigger
finger and was anxious to portray himself as a great, wise and patient leader who wanted the
public to think that he was fighting mightily to avoid the very war that he was simultaneously,
and secretly, trying desperately to provoke. Oklahoma Congressman and House Majority Leader Carl Albert had overheard a telephone
conversation (evidently, not coincidentally), as Johnson was trying to enlist supporters for the
cause; Johnson had held Albert over after a breakfast presentation with other House leaders.
The telephone call, between LBJ and DEFSEC McNamara, was about a report regarding the two destroyers
supposedly under attack by North Vietnamese torpedo boats. Albert heard Johnson say, “’I’ll
tell you what I want. I not only want those patrol boats that attacked the Maddox
destroyed, I want everything at that harbor destroyed; I want the whole works destroyed.
I want to give them a real dose.”[3] Like many cowards, Johnson loved to “talk tough.” He often used the phrase “going for the jugular” to describe how vicious he could be when he thought his honor, or political position, was under attack. “‘They thought they could frighten the President of the United States,’ he said after Vietcong terrorist attacks had brought retaliatory US air
strikes to the North, adding: ‘They just didn’t know this President.’”[4] On 7 August 1964, Johnson’s skills with meticulously-timed choreography was
on full display as he went to Congress armed with the draft resolution that he had McGeorge
Bundy prepare in advance of these “attacks,” which authorized him to “take
all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and
to prevent further aggression.” It was intended to give him a “blank check”
to conduct the war in complete autonomy, using the armed forces however he wished in Vietnam,
free of congressional supervision. Johnson’s success
in his cunningly designed false flag operation resulted in the nearly-unanimous passage of a
joint resolution by Congress. The only votes against it came from Senators Wayne
Morse (D-OR) and Ernest Gruening (D-AK). Gruening stated that his opposition
was based upon “sending our American boys into combat in a war in which we have no business,
which is not our war, into which we have been misguidedly drawn, which is steadily being escalated”.
In retrospect, those simple and straightforward words were the most profoundly rare and brilliant
ones spoken by anyone that day on Capitol Hill.  Johnson cunningly used the Vietnam
issue as part of his presidential campaign, positioning himself as doing
everything he could to contain America’s Communist enemies while
steadfastly avoiding war, in contrast to the saber-rattling Senator Goldwater. While he wanted to portray himself as prudent and cautious compared to Goldwater, he also did not want to appear to be a “pushover” for some “tin-horn dictator of a fourth rate”
country.
Simultaneously with the escalation, through the next three years – with the help of the “Deep State” establishment and their mainstream media (MSM) reporters – he would falsely complain about how his hands were tied, that the “quagmire” had been started by his predecessors. Adding more contradictory lies to the mix during the same time
frame, Johnson repeatedly assured the American people that things were going well there, even
while acknowledging that they would have to carry “perhaps for a long time the burden
of a confusing and costly war in Vietnam.” But in
private, to the few with whom he chose to confide the truth – as he did to his CIA briefer
Colonel John Downie, in his last session with Johnson in 1966, after Downie had repeatedly “urged
him to get out of Vietnam – a frustrated LBJ pounded the table and exclaimed, ‘I
cannot get out of Vietnam, John, my friends are making too much money.’”[5] The Long-Delayed Truth of LBJ’s False Flag
Op Finally Revealed Almost
immediately after the passage of the resolution, the iconoclastic independent journalist I.
F. Stone, writing in “I.F. Stone’s Weekly” – using evidence drawn from a close reading and analysis of published accounts – became the first American journalist to challenge President Lyndon B. Johnson’s account of the Gulf of Tonkin incident.[6]
Unfortunately, Stone’s newsletter had a very limited circulation, so not very many people
knew about it since the major newspapers and broadcast networks carefully avoided such critiques. Shortly after that, essays questioning the rationality of the military build-up began,
notably in such “underground” publications as Ramparts. In 1965, William
F. Pepper wrote “Children of Vietnam,” for example, showing the tragic
effects of the earliest American involvement in crossing the line – from JFK’s military
“advisors” to LBJ’s combat troops.[7] In numerous other
contemporaneous magazines – both underground and avant-garde, but rarely “MSM”types
– the premises and rationale of the war, the absence of any discernible national interest
in the expenditures of blood and treasury were closely examined and found wanting. As early as the last half of the 1960s decade, authors such as Joseph Goulden (Truth is the First Casualty: The Gulf of Tonkin Affair and Reality) established that the Tonkin Gulf incident was a pretext developed in the White House to force Congress to
adopt a resolution for Johnson to use to escalate the war without the need to get further congressional
support after he won reelection. The young Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter Peter Arnett
adroitly described the situation: “The South Vietnamese Army is sick. Like the society
which created it, it is riddled with factionism, nepotism, corruption, inefficiency, incompetence,
and cowardice. . . It often lacks the will for combat and is increasingly prone to let Americans
do the fighting.”[8] In 1968, author
and former Lieutenant Colonel William R. Corson added specific context to these points when
he wrote that the 25th Division of the Vietnamese army (Army of the Republic of Vietnam —
ARVN) participated in approximately 100,000 operations during 1966, yet engaged in enemy contact
less than 100 times. Of all the conventiona l military terms such as combat patrol, raid, search-and-destroy
and reconnaissance patrol, the one which best described their “combat” operations
was “search and avoid.”[9] Yet,
despite the emergence of the truth during the decades of the 70s, 80s and 90s, it took another
40 years for the government to finally acknowledge that the second Tonkin incident, on August
4, 1964, was a lie about an attack that never happened.[10] In the meantime, many “historians in name only (HINOs),” — too many to list, but two of whom typify that group, Robert Dallek and David Halberstam — who were too incurious to seek out the true facts of actual historic events, continued repeating the lie.
Despite the many challenges to the official government pronouncements, continuing to automatically
treat them as “fact” even when much of it was dubious at best and absurd at worst,
did nothing to promote government credibility. The opposite result was inevitable as the MSM
continued to raise no questions about the failing premise. To summarize, it can be said that: - JFK’s
intent was to pull 1,000 military advisors out of Vietnam by
- Christmas, 1963 and all
remaining military personnel by the end of 1965;
- Furthermore,
there was no contingency related to the status (i.e. whether
- they were “winning”
or “losing” it) of what was then a “North vs. South” civil war;
- LBJ’s intent from “Day 1” of his presidency (before JFK was buried) was
to reverse
- JFK’s plans and to begin a steady escalation of the war shortly after
his election,
- eleven months into the future;
- Within the first weeks of his presidency, he instructed his staff and the
- Pentagon
to begin making plans to begin escalating the war in 1965;
- One
of the first action items to be completed was the false flag operation that became
- known
as the “Gulf of Tonkin” attack, which produced a nearly-unanimous congressional
- resolution
that gave him “absolute power” to conduct that war as he desired;
- The result was quickly an “Americanized” war that became micromanaged by the
- “Commander
in Chief” who knew no more about war games than he knew about Einstein’s Theory of Relativity.
- The question of whether a pull-out could made of military troops became inseparable
- from the larger question of “winning” it. Or “losing” it, as
it inevitably, and eventually, happened.
End Notes: [1] Galbraith, James K.
“Exit Strategy: In 1963, JFK ordered a complete withdrawal from Vietnam,” The
Boston Review September 1, 2003 (Galbraith references Robert McNamara’s assertion,
in his 1995 book In Retrospect, that President Kennedy decided on October 2, 1963 to begin the withdrawal of U.S. forces; he then traced eighteen months of detailed steps
which JFK had taken to lead up to a planned withdrawal. Galbraith also cited John Newman’s seminal
1992 book JFK and Vietnam, which put Kennedy’s long-term strategy in historic
context, and explained why the key parts of it were not contained in the Pentagon Papers released in 1971). A summary of this material is contained in my blog titled “The Keepers of State
Secrets: Noam Chomsky and Bill Moyers (Among Others), on a Mission
to Hide the Worst Treasons of the 1960s?” which can be viewed HERE. [2] Dunn, Si. Dark Signals: A Navy Radio Operator in the Tonkin Gulf and South China Sea, 1965-1965, p. 71 [3] Dallek, Robert, Flawed Giant, p. 150
[4] Geyelin, Philip, Lyndon B. Johnson and the World, p. 113 [5] Pepper, William F. The Plot to Kill King, p. xxxiv [6] Wikipedia, I. F. Stone page [7] Nelson, Phillip F., LBJ: From Mastermind to The Colossus , p. 364
[8] Op. Cit. (Pepper, Appendix B pp. 347-373) [9] Corson, William R. The Betrayal, p. 98 [10]
Patterson, Pat (Lt.Cmdr. U.S. Navy) “The Truth about Tonkin” Naval History Magazine,
Feb. 2008 (See here)
____________________________________________________________________
Our First Jewish President Lyndon Johnson? – an update!!
A few months ago, the Associated Press reported that newly released tapes from US president Lyndon
Johnson’s White House office showed LBJ’s “personal and often emotional connection to Israel.” The
news agency pointed out that during the Johnson presidency (1963-1969), “the United States became Israel’s chief
diplomatic ally and primary arms supplier.” But the news report does
little to reveal the full historical extent of Johnson’s actions on behalf of the Jewish people and the State of
Israel. Most students of the Arab-Israeli conflict can identify Johnson as the president during the 1967
war. But few know about LBJ’s actions to rescue hundreds of endangered Jews during the Holocaust –
actions that could have thrown him out of Congress and into jail. Indeed, the title of “Righteous Gentile”
is certainly appropriate in the case of the Texan, whose centennial year is being commemorated this year.
Appropriately enough, the annual Jerusalem Conference announced this week that it will honor Johnson.
Historians have revealed that Johnson, while serving as a young congressman
in 1938 and 1939, arranged for visas to be supplied to Jews in Warsaw, and oversaw the apparently illegal immigration
of hundreds of Jews through the port of Galveston, Texas….
A key
resource for uncovering LBJ’s pro-Jewish activity is the unpublished 1989 doctoral thesis by University of
Texas student Louis Gomolak, “Prologue: LBJ’s Foreign Affairs Background, 1908-1948.” Johnson’s
activities were confirmed by other historians in interviews with his wife, family members and political associates.
Research into Johnson’s personal history indicates that he inherited
his concern for the Jewish people from his family. His aunt Jessie Johnson Hatcher, a major influence on LBJ,
was a member of the Zionist Organization of America. According to Gomolak, Aunt Jessie had nurtured LBJ’s commitment
to befriending Jews for 50 years. As young boy, Lyndon watched his politically active grandfather “Big Sam”
and father “Little Sam” seek clemency for Leo Frank, the Jewish victim of a blood libel in Atlanta.
Frank was lynched by a mob in 1915, and the Ku Klux Klan in Texas threatened to kill the Johnsons. The Johnsons
later told friends that Lyndon’s family hid in their cellar while his father and uncles stood guard with
shotguns on their porch in case of KKK attacks. Johnson’s speech writer later stated, “Johnson often
cited Leo Frank’s lynching as the source of his opposition to both anti-Semitism and isolationism.” Already in 1934 – four years before Chamberlain’s Munich sellout to Hitler – Johnson was keenly
alert to the dangers of Nazism and presented a book of essays, ‘Nazism: An Assault on Civilization’,
to the 21-year-old woman he was courting, Claudia Taylor – later known as “Lady Bird” Johnson.
It was an incredible engagement present.
FIVE DAYS after taking
office in 1937, LBJ broke with the “Dixiecrats” and supported an immigration bill that would naturalize
illegal aliens, mostly Jews from Lithuania and Poland. In 1938, Johnson was told of a young Austrian Jewish musician who
was about to be deported from the United States. With an element of subterfuge, LBJ sent him to the US Consulate in Havana
to obtain a residency permit. Erich Leinsdorf, the world famous musician and conductor, credited LBJ for saving his live.
That same year, LBJ warned Jewish friend, Jim Novy, that European Jews faced annihilation.
“Get as many Jewish people as possible out of Germany and Poland,” were Johnson’s instructions. Somehow,
Johnson provided him with a pile of signed immigration papers that were used to get 42 Jews out of Warsaw. But that
wasn’t enough. According to historian James M. Smallwood, Congressman Johnson used legal and sometimes illegal methods
to smuggle “hundreds of Jews into Texas, using Galveston as the entry port. Enough money could buy false passports
and fake visas in Cuba, Mexico and other Latin American countries. Johnson smuggled boatloads and planeloads of Jews into
Texas. He hid them in the Texas National Youth Administration. Johnson saved at least four or five hundred Jews, possibly
more.”
During World War II Johnson joined Novy at a small Austin gathering
to sell $65,000 in war bonds. According to Gomolak, Novy and Johnson then raised a very “substantial sum for arms
for Jewish underground fighters in Palestine.” One source cited by the historian reports that “Novy and Johnson
had been secretly shipping heavy crates labeled ‘Texas Grapefruit’ – but containing arms – to Jewish
underground ‘freedom fighters’ in Palestine.” ON JUNE 4, 1945, Johnson visited Dachau. According
to Smallwood, Lady Bird later recalled that when her husband returned home, “he was still shaken, stunned, terrorized,
and bursting with an overpowering revulsion and incredulous horror at what he had seen.”
A decade later while serving in the Senate, Johnson blocked the Eisenhower administration’s attempts
to apply sanctions against Israel following the 1956 Sinai Campaign. “The indefatigable Johnson had never ceased
pressure on the administration,” wrote I.L. “Si” Kenen, the head of AIPAC at the time.
As Senate majority leader, Johnson consistently blocked the anti-Israel initiatives of his fellow Democrat, William
Fulbright, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Among Johnson’s closest advisers during
this period were several strong pro-Israel advocates, including Benjamin Cohen (who 30 years earlier was the liaison
between Supreme Court justice Louis Brandeis and Chaim Weizmann) and Abe Fortas, the legendary Washington “insider.” Johnson’s concern for the Jewish people continued through his presidency. Soon after taking office in
the aftermath of John F. Kennedy’s assassination in 1963, Johnson told an Israeli diplomat, “You have
lost a very great friend, but you have found a better one.” Just one month after succeeding Kennedy,
LBJ attended the December 1963 dedication of the Agudas Achim Synagogue in Austin. Novy opened the ceremony by
saying to Johnson, “We can’t thank him enough for all those Jews he got out of Germany during the days
of Hitler.” Lady Bird would later describe the day, according to Gomolak: “Person after person
plucked at my sleeve and said, ‘I wouldn’t be here today if it wasn’t for him. He helped me get
out.'” Lady Bird elaborated, “Jews had been woven into the warp and woof of all [Lyndon’s] years.”
The PRELUDE to the 1967 war was a terrifying period for Israel, with the US
State Department led by the historically unfriendly Dean Rusk urging an evenhanded policy despite Arab threats
and acts of aggression. Johnson held no such illusions. After the war he placed the blame firmly on Egypt: “If
a single act of folly was more responsible for this explosion than any other, it was the arbitrary and dangerous announced
decision [by Egypt that the Strait of Tiran would be closed [to Israeli ships and Israeli-bound cargo].”
Kennedy was the first president to approve the sale of defensive US weapons to Israel,
specifically Hawk anti-aircraft missiles. But Johnson approved tanks and fighter jets, all vital after the 1967 war when
France imposed a freeze on sales to Israel. Yehuda Avner recently described on these pages prime minister Levi Eshkol’s
successful appeal for these weapons on a visit to the LBJ ranch. Israel won the 1967 war, and Johnson worked to make
sure it also won the peace. “I sure as hell want to be careful and not run out on little Israel,” Johnson said
in a March 1968 conversation with his ambassador to the United Nations, Arthur Goldberg, according to White House tapes
recently released.
Soon after the 1967 war, Soviet premier Aleksei Kosygin
asked Johnson at the Glassboro Summit why the US supported Israel when there were 80 million Arabs and only three million
Israelis. “Because it is a right thing to do,” responded the straight-shooting Texan.
The crafting of UN Resolution 242 in November 1967 was done under Johnson’s scrutiny. The call for
“secure and recognized boundaries” was critical. The American and British drafters of the resolution opposed
Israel returning all the territories captured in the war. In September 1968, Johnson explained, “We are not the ones
to say where other nations should draw lines between them that will assure each the greatest security. It is clear,
however, that a return to the situation of 4 June 1967 will not bring peace. There must be secure and there
must be recognized borders. Some such lines must be agreed to by the neighbors involved.” Goldberg
later noted, “Resolution 242 in no way refers to Jerusalem, and this omission was deliberate.” This
historic diplomacy was conducted under Johnson’s stewardship, as Goldberg related in oral history to the
Johnson Library. “I must say for Johnson,” Goldberg stated. “He gave me great personal support.”
Robert David Johnson, a professor of history at Brooklyn College, recently
wrote in The New York Sun, Johnson’s policies stemmed more from personal concerns – his friendship with
leading Zionists, his belief that America had a moral obligation to bolster Israeli security and his conception
of Israel as a frontier land much like his home state of Texas. His personal concerns led him to intervene when
he felt that the State or Defense departments had insufficiently appreciated Israel’s diplomatic or military
needs.”
President Johnson firmly pointed American policy
in a pro-Israel direction. In a historical context, the American emergency airlift to Israel in 1973, the constant
diplomatic support, the economic and military assistance and the strategic bonds between the two countries can all
be credited to the seeds planted by LBJ.
ADDITONAL NOTE:
Lyndon Johnson’s maternal ancestors, the Huffmans, apparently migrated to Frederick,
Maryland from Germany sometime in the mid-eighteenth century. Later they moved to Bourbon, Kentucky and eventually
settled in Texas in the mid-to-late nineteenth century.
According to Jewish law, if a person’s mother is Jewish, then that person is automatically
Jewish, regardless of the father’s ethnicity or religion. The facts indicate that both of Lyndon Johnson’s
great-grandparents, on the maternal side, were Jewish. These were
the grandparents of Lyndon’s mother, Rebecca Baines. Their names were John S. Huffman and Mary Elizabeth Perrin.
John Huffman’s mother was Suzanne Ament, a common Jewish name. Perrin is also a common Jewish name.
Huffman and Perrin had a daughter, Ruth Ament Huffman, who married Joseph Baines and
together they had a daughter, Rebekah Baines, Lyndon Johnson’s mother. The line of Jewish mothers can be traced
back three generations in Lyndon Johnson’s family tree. There is little doubt that he was Jewish.  
- DUBINSKY TELLS JUANITA ROBERTS THAT
HE NEEDS TO SPEAK BRIEFLY TO LBJ; ROBERTS TELLS DUBINSKY SHE WILL RELAY HIS MESSAGE TO LBJ
- Telephone conversation # 9869, sound recording, JUANITA ROBERTS and DAVID DUBINSKY, 3/10/1966,
11:10AM?
- Dubinsky, David, 1892-1982
- DAVID DUBINSKY
- LBJ ASKS DUBINSKY ABOUT DREW PEARSON STORY REPORTING ALEX
ROSE WAS OFFENDED THAT LBJ DID NOT CALL HIM ABOUT JOHN LINDSAY AND NYC MAYORAL RACE; DUBINSKY REASSURES LBJ HE ACTED
CORRECTLY; LBJ THANKS DUBINSKY FOR HIS ACTIONS AT RECENT CONVENTION
- Telephone
conversation # 8306, sound recording, LBJ and DAVID DUBINSKY, 7/7/1965, 1:25PM
- Dubinsky, David, 1892-1982
- POOR SOUND QUALITY; DUBINSKY
IS ALMOST INAUDIBLE
- DAVID DUBINSKY
- DUBINSKY EXPRESSES SUPPORT FOR LBJ; LBJ THANKS DUBINSKY,
ASKS TO MEET WITH HIM IN THE NEAR FUTURE
- Telephone conversation # 26, sound
recording, LBJ and DAVID DUBINSKY, 11/23/1963, 7:32PM
- Dubinsky,
David, 1892-1982
- "TRANSCRIBED"; IBM BELT; DAT RECORDING
MADE FROM REEL-TO-REEL TAPE RECORDED FROM ORIGINAL BELT IN ATTEMPT TO PROVIDE IMPROVED SOUND QUALITY; PREVIOUSLY RELEASED
ON K6311.01, PNO 23 AND K6311.01A, PNO 23; DUBINSKY IS HARD TO HEAR
- DAVID
DUBINSKY
- DUBINSKY ANNOUNCES HIS RETIREMENT AS PRESIDENT OF ILGWU,
SUGGESTS LBJ MAKE STATEMENT ON MINIMUM WAGE BILL; LBJ DISCUSSES ADMINISTRATION POSITION, STRATEGY ON MINIMUM WAGE INCREASE;
GEORGE MEANY'S ROLE IN BILL; ADAM CLAYTON POWELL'S SUPPORT FOR BILL
- Telephone
conversation # 9871, sound recording, LBJ and DAVID DUBINSKY, 3/10/1966, 12:48PM
- Dubinsky, David, 1892-1982
- "RE: HIS RESIGNATION
AS PRES. OF I.L.W.U."; OFFICE SECRETARY ASKS IF SHE CAN BRING IN LETTER, ANNOUNCES CALL FROM DUBINSKY; CONTINUES
ON NEXT RECORDING
- DAVID DUBINSKY
- NEW YORK LIBERAL PARTY POLITICS; LBJ TEASES DUBINSKY ABOUT
JOHN LINDSAY'S ELECTION; MINIMUM WAGE BILL SIGNING CEREMONY IN NYC OR IN THE SOUTH; NEW YORK GUBERNATORIAL RACE AND EFFECT
ON 1968 ELECTION; LIBERAL PARTY SUPPORT FOR FDR, JR., NOT FRANK
- Telephone conversation
# 10710, sound recording, LBJ and DAVID DUBINSKY, 9/1/1966, 11:24PM
- Dubinsky, David, 1892-1982
- CONTINUES ON NEXT RECORDING;
CARL ALBERT IS MEETING WITH LBJ AT TIME OF CALL; DUBINSKY IS DIFFICULT TO HEAR; TV OR RADIO AUDIBLE IN BACKGROUND
AT TIMES
- DAVID DUBINSKY
- JOSEPH P. KENNEDY, JR. FOUNDATION AWARDS, WEIZMANN SCIENCE INSTITUTE
DINNERS; DUBINSKY IS INVOLVED IN A STRIKE SITUATION; ALEX ROSE; ? SCHMIDT?; CONSUMER INTERESTS MESSAGE
- Telephone conversation # 1900, sound recording, LBJ and DAVID DUBINSKY, 2/5/1964,
5:56PM
- Dubinsky, David, 1892-1982
- DAVID DUBINSKY
- DUBINSKY PRAISES LBJ'S TV APPEARANCE YESTERDAY; LBJ ASKS
ADVICE ON REAPPOINTING MORRIS NOVIK TO USIA BOARD; LBJ'S ALLEGED ENDORSEMENT IN NEW YORK CONGRESSIONAL RACE BETWEEN CHARLES
BUCKLEY, JONATHAN BINGHAM; LBJ'S POLICY OF MAKING NO PRIMARY
- Telephone conversation
# 2522, sound recording, LBJ and DAVID DUBINSKY, 3/17/1964, 11:20AM
- Dubinsky, David, 1892-1982
- DAVID DUBINSKY
- CONTINUED DISCUSSION OF STRATEGY FOR PASSAGE OF MINIMUM WAGE BILL;
LBJ EMPHASIZES NEED FOR LABOR TO WORK FOR BILL; DUBINSKY SAYS HE CALLED LBJ FOR CLARIFICATION ON WHAT TO TELL ILGWU
BOARD ABOUT BILL
- Telephone conversation # 9872, sound recording, LBJ and DAVID
DUBINSKY, 3/10/1966, 12:48PM
- Dubinsky, David, 1892-1982
- DAVID DUBINSKY
- Telephone conversation # 10711, sound recording, LBJ and DAVID
DUBINSKY, 9/1/1966, 11:24PM
- Dubinsky, David, 1892-1982
- CONTINUES FROM PREVIOUS RECORDING; CARL ALBERT AND LADY BIRD JOHNSON ARE MEETING WITH LBJ
AT TIME OF CALL BUT ALBERT DOES NOT SPEAK ON THIS RECORDING; DUBINSKY IS DIFFICULT TO HEAR; RECORDING IS BRIEFLY
INTERRUPTED IN MIDDLE OF CALL
- DAVID DUBINSKY
- LBJ'S UPCOMING SCHEDULE; LBJ TELLS DUBINSKY
HHH WILL ADDRESS NEW YORK RALLY INSTEAD OF LBJ BECAUSE HE WILL BE SPEAKING TO MORMON GROUP IN SALT LAKE CITY; DISCUSSION
OF TIMING OF ADS ANNOUNCING HHH AS SPEAKER, OTHER CAMPAIGN ADS
- Telephone conversation
# 5952, sound recording, LBJ and DAVID DUBINSKY, 10/23/1964, 7:05PM
- Dubinsky, David, 1892-1982
- DAILY DIARY INDICATES
LBJ IS MEETING WITH HHH AT TIME OF CALL; HHH PUTS DUBINSKY ON HOLD 2:30 DURING CALL TO DISCUSS ARRANGEMENTS FOR SPEECH
WITH LBJ
- DAVID DUBINSKY
Telephone conversation # 9658, sound recording, LBJ and WILLARD WIRTZ, 2/22/1966, 10:34AM (Item) - WIRTZ' MEETING WITH AFL-CIO LEADERS; WIRTZ SUGGESTS LBJ MEET WITH DAVID
DUBINSKY, JACOB POTOFSKY; LBJ'S CONCERN ABOUT LABOR'S CRITICISM OF ECONOMIC, VIETNAM POLICIES, PREFERENCE FOR MEETING
WITH LARGER GROUP; RFK; GEORGE MEANY; REPEAL OF TAFT
- "RE UNION MATTERS
(DUBINSKY)"; CONTINUES ON NEXT RECORDING
- LBJ'S MEETING WITH DAVID DUBINSKY ON AIRLINE STRIKE
BILL; DUBINSKY'S SUGGESTION THAT GEORGE MEANY CALL MEETING OF LABOR LEADERS TO SETTLE STRIKE; EFFECT OF STRIKE
ON OTHER LABOR BILLS; WIRTZ SAYS HE WANTS TO MEET PRIVATELY WITH LBJ, CALIFANO ABOUT
- GOLDBERG PRAISES LBJ'S STATE OF THE UNION MESSAGE; GEORGE MEANY'S REACTION
TO LBJ'S CRITICISM OF PROPOSED 35-HOUR WORK WEEK; DAVID DUBINSKY'S REACTION TO THE SPEECH; LBJ ON OVERTIME
LABOR CAUSING UNEMPLOYMENT; GOLDBERG COMPARES LBJ TO FDR
- PRESS STORIES ON LBJ; NYT; LBJ ASKS ADVICE ON PROPOSED TRIP TO POVERTY-STRICKEN
AREAS OF NYC TO INCREASE SUPPORT FOR POVERTY BILL; COMPARISON WITH FDR TRIPS; LBJ COMMENTS ON ACCUSATIONS OF COMMERCIALIZING
PRESIDENCY; WILLIAM WEXLER?; DAVID DUBINSKY
- LBJ THANKS MEANY AND OTHER LABOR LEADERS FOR THEIR SUPPORT IN CAMPAIGN;
MEANY TELLS LBJ HE IS EN ROUTE TO JAPAN WITH DAVID DUBINSKY, JIM SUFFRIDGE, AND GEORGE HARRISON FOR GOODWILL
VISIT UPON ESTABLISHMENT OF NEW LABOR FEDERATION THERE
- LBJ TELLS GOODWIN TO HAVE JAMES ROWE ASK JOCK WHITNEY TO GIVE LBJ A
FAIR SHAKE; DAVID DUBINSKY'S REQUEST FOR TAPE; NEED FOR NEW CAMPAIGN STATEMENTS; LBJ REMINISCES ABOUT
GENERATING PUBLICITY AS CONGRESSIONAL SECRETARY, JOKES ABOUT WALTER JENKINS
- OFFICE CONVERSATION PRECEDES CALL, DURING CALL; LBJ IS MEETING WITH
DAVID DUBINSKY, JACK VALENTI AT TIME OF CALL; VALENTI PLACES CALL TO O'DONNELL, THEN HANDS TELEPHONE TO
LBJ
- OFFICE CONVERSATION WHILE LBJ ON HOLD; LBJ IS MEETING WITH DAVID
DUBINSKY AT TIME OF CALL
- , Bureau of the Budget arriving at ll:41a --
and to the office MW (pl) Bill Moyers and DougCornell Charles Schultze departed BM (pl) MW (pl) David Dubinsky
OFF RECORD (appt requested by Evelyn Dubrow on behalf of Mr. Dubinsky to let Mr. Dubinsky pay
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