Here is a cool memorandum written by Richard Nixon in ’69, to his Secy of State William Rogers and National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger. It was sent along to me by scholar Roland Popp, who dug it up in the National Archives. I sure hope you can look at it.
The actual text reads: "I have noted in reading the papers prepared by the State Department and the Security Council Review Board on the Mideast, references from time to time to ‘domestic political considerations.’
"The purpose of this memorandum is twofold:
"1. Under no circumstances will domestic political considerations have any bearing on the decisions I make with regard to the Mideast;
"2. The only consideration that will effect [sic] my decisions on this policy will be the security interests of the United States.
"In the future, I want no references to domestic political considerations to be included in any papers and I do not want the subject of domestic political considerations to be brought up in discussions of this subject.
"Will you please circulate this memorandum among all those who are working on this problem.
"[Signed] RN"
I’d note that the writer who picked this memo up before Popp, Richard Reeves, in his Nixon book, linked it with Nixon’s antisemitism. Calling Kissinger Jewboy, for instance. (Can’t seem to make the link work).
My own response is: Smart guy, Nixon. What a good mind when it was working. Logical and straightforward. I take him at his word here. I think he was pissed off by the Israel lobby talk. At a time when the Israel lobby was arising, post-’67, during the "existential" period of Jewish fears for the Jewish state (which of course continue today in the Dershowitzian mind of Jewish leadership), as a new force in American life. Nixon’s irritation reminds me of George H.W. Bush’s irritation in ’91, when he raged against "all these lobbyists" on Capitol Hill. Nixon and James Baker both said Fuck the Jews. But they couldn’t, could they. I don’t know what specific policy Nixon was working on. Bush was trying in ’91 to put the freeze on settlements. GHWBush lost the next election; and the settlements continued… By one report, senior Bush has blamed the Israel lobby for his loss. His son has not made that mistake. So much for domestic political considerations.
Will you please circulate this memo to all who are working on the problem….
