Michael Piper and Final Judgment

[David Josephs]

Mark...

So now it's MORE unsupported statements AND Ad homs, the level of your reposnses seems to drop a few notches with each passing day...

You now believe that LBJ and McNamarra had NO INFLUENCE on what went to Israel and Why?

Uh, OK



The Question of Arms for Israel and Jordan
As the year 1964 began, Israel launched an intensive effort to obtain modern U.S. tanks to counterbalance Soviet-equipped UAR forces. The request ran counter to established U.S. policy to avoid becoming a major arms supplier to either side in the Arab-Israeli dispute. Although the Kennedy administration had diverged from the policy with its 1962 sale of Hawk missiles to Israel, Johnson administration officials were reluctant to depart further from it. While there was much sympathy for Israel's request within the administration, as well as awareness of the domestic political benefits of providing the tanks in an election year, there was also concern over the likely Arab reaction and the impact of a sale on U.S. interests in the Near East and influence in the Arab world. (3, 7, 10, 13, 28, 29, 42)

(DJ: Wow, just what JFK was concerned over....)

After an interdepartmental review, the National Security Council Standing Group agreed that the anticipated Arab reaction precluded a direct U.S. tank sale to Israel, but that the United States should assist Israel in obtaining British, French, or German tanks. White House aide Myer Feldman was dispatched to Tel Aviv to tell the Israelis that the United States would not sell tanks directly but would help them obtain tanks from Europe. (47, 48, 54-57) When Israel's Prime Minister Levi Eshkol visited Washington in June 1964, Johnson told him the United States would help Israel in every way possible to obtain British and German tanks at an affordable price. (64, 65) Subsequently, a complicated arrangement was worked out in which Israel would purchase U.S. tanks from Germany, with modernization kits to be supplied by the United States, supplemented by British tanks. The German tank deal was contingent on secrecy. (98)

While the tank negotiations were still underway, a new request for U.S. arms came from Jordan. King Hussein informed the Embassy that Jordan was under pressure from the Unified Arab Command (UAC), which had been created in January 1964 by an Arab summit meeting, to expand Jordanian military forces and introduce Soviet equipment, including tanks and a squadron of supersonic fighters. Hussein had told the UAC that Jordan could obtain U.S. equipment, but if the United States would not provide it, he would be under irresistible pressure to accept Soviet aircraft. (77) The request, especially the request for supersonic aircraft, posed a difficult problem. A sale to Jordan would lead to enormous pressure to sell similar equipment to Israel, with the inevitable Arab reaction, but the administration considered the alternative of a Soviet presence in Jordan unacceptable. (79, 80, 90, 115) At an NSC meeting in February 1965, President Johnson and his advisers agreed that a tank sale to Jordan was necessary but that they should try to persuade King Hussein to forego supersonics or buy Western European planes. (128) Meanwhile, Eshkol was informed of the pending U.S. tank sale to Jordan and the likelihood of Jordan's acquisition of supersonic jets. His strongly negative reply increased Johnson's concern about domestic reaction to the sale of arms to Jordan and persuaded U.S. policymakers that it would be necessary to reverse the policy against direct arms sales to Israel. (135, 136, 138)