From Dallas to Gaza-- JFK's Assassination and U.S.-Israeli History

[Robert Morrow]

On 1/1/2024 at 1:08 PM, James DiEugenio said:

 

SL: Any opinions on what JFK would have done after the 10/7 Hamas attack on Israel?

Sandy:

Let me repeat, in all probability there would have been no 1967 war if JFK had lived. 

From Robert Rakove's Kennedy, Johnson and the Nonaligned World: "As the embassy counselor, Donald Bergus, reported, a thousand Egyptians came to the American Embassy to write messages of condolences.  Many were prominent citizens, including Prime Minister Ali Sabri and and influential member of the Presidency Council named Anwar Sadat.  Others though, were ordinary citizens.  Bergus observed, "The expressions on their faces left no doubt concerning the genuineness of their sorrow."  Mourners remarked that "Kennedy was the first president who really understood the Afro-Asian world." ...An editorial in the daily Al-Ahram stated that Kennedy had transformed the Unites States from the "repugnant rich brother" to the "cherished rich brother of the human family."

Rakove goes on to describe on the next page, how within a year, this had changed: now angry mobs assaulted US owned libraries in Egypt. 

He later goes on to describe how Johnson, unlike Kennedy, relied on coercion in the Third World..  He explains what he means by this: "he was reluctant to aid or otherwise abet states that refused to side with the United States. Johnson's own utterances reveal a general exasperation with the proclamations and demands of nonaligned states, an attitude shared by much of the American public....He had comparatively little patience for states that refused to choose sides or...accepted US aid while continuing to criticize or oppose his policies. He held, at heart, a more traditional view of the Cold War, as a struggle in which states ultimately should choose sides....Thus, with Johnson's ascendance, the departure that Kennedy initiated came to its end--not immediately but inexorably."

What Rakove is talking about in one aspect is the battle over foreign aid.  Which LBJ used as described above, if you criticized the USA it was much harder to get it or as much as JFK gave you. Therefore, as he describes later in the book, Nasser turned to the USSR.  It was this policy that Kennedy was against--driving Nonaligned leaders into the arms of Moscow. (p. 245). In fact Sadat, Nasser's deputy, said that under Johnson American policy toward Egypt was worse that during the Dulles era. In complementary style, Nasser made a speech on Mayday saying that America, in light of Indochina, was the leading counterrevolutionary state in the world.

But it was not just that, it was the fact that LBJ had clearly titled toward not just Israel but, of all places, Saudi Arabia, backers of the Muslim Brotherhood. (p. 246)

BTW, this is just a few pages from a rich book.  IMO, its the best there is on the topic.

 

 

Lyndon Johnson was also a big fan of the Shah of Iran and loved the power that the Shah wielded as a dictator and not merely because he was "pro American."

I often say that Lyndon Johnson and Donald Trump have the exact same psychological profile.

Lyndon Johnson liked the Shah of Iran because he was a powerful dictator

 Larry Hancock:

 In The Eagle and the Lion, James Bill makes the following remarks:

"Johnson basked in the spotlight of power and was always impressed by those who maintained power monopolies in their own lands. The more power, pomp, and circumstance, the more impressed Johnson was. The shah of Iran, therefore, was an extremely attractive and important figure to Johnson...the shah was an ally...a tough one at that... ...."toughness" was important to LBJ , whose foreign policy rested ultimately on a ""mythical Alamo Syndrome" that guided America's actions in places like the Dominican Republic and Vietnam"