Michael Piper and Final Judgment

[Mark Stapleton]

Let's forget the actual correspondance between LBJ and Eshkol, that I posted and you dismissed, which stated exactly the same position about the middle east and peace, as JFK... offensive/nuclear weapons are a threat to the balance of power in the middle east...

Laughable rubbish. There's no comparison between the two. Johnson's letters contained none of the threatening tone seen in the Kennedy letters.

The only time the Johnson Administration ever appeared close to a confrontation with Israel was in 1968, when they tried to persuade Israel to sign the NPT. Chapter 16 of Cohen analyses this in detail. The main protagonist for the Administration was Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs Paul Warnke.

Warnke wanted to use the proposed sale of Phantom F4 Jets to Israel as a bargaining chip to persuade Israel to sign the NPT. Warnke and Dean Rusk held several meetings with Israeli Ambassador Rabin and IAF Commander Mordechai Hod, in an attempt to get them to sign a Memorandum of Understanding linking the nuclear issue to the sale of the Phantom F4's. Warnke explained his keen desire to force Israel to sign the NPT:

It's not just 50 Phantoms, but 50 Phantoms plus 100 Skyhawks plus the great variety of other equipment that Israel is requesting that makes the policy we are entering upon a distinct change from our prior policy. This qualitative change would create a different set of circumstances concerning our supply relationship with Israel...involving us even more intimately with Israel's security situation and involving more directly the security of the United States.

However, after the last of these meetings, in which Rabin described in his memoirs how he "sat stupefied, feeling the blood rising to my face", Israeli representatives petitioned the WH to intervene. Apparently Rabin contacted Abe Feinberg, a friend and strong supporter of the President, and asked him to get Johnson to end the stalemate. Within days Warnke was instructed by Clifford to cancel the MOU at the request of the WH. Warnke was told that President Johnson wished to finalize the Phantom deal swiftly and without conditions (Cohen p. 315).

Once again, LBJ bowed to Israel.