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Phantom Peace

Henry “Scoop” Jackson, J. William Fulbright, and Military Sales to Israel

When Richard Nixon assumed the presidency in 1969, despite Johnson’s decision to sell offensive weapons, the future of U.S.-Israel relations remained uncertain. While Democratic presidents (Harry Truman, John Kennedy, and Lyndon Johnson) maintained generally positive relations with Israel, the Republican Dwight Eisenhower did not.¹ As former vice president for Eisenhower, President Nixon did not want to get too close to Israel, a position that can also be gleaned from his anti-Semitic comments recorded on Oval Office tapes and his many outbursts about Israel during the course of his one and one-half terms.² However, Nixon regarded Israel as an important friend in the Cold War, and he admired Israeli toughness and, therefore, sought a closer strategic alliance with Israel. But much like his predecessors, regardless of party affiliation, he actually pursued an evenhanded position in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Congress and the Cold War, along with Nixon’s weakened position due to Watergate and Vietnam, reworked Nixon’s policy aims in the Middle East.

During Nixon’s first term as president, Congress played an influential role in securing larger military-aid packages for Israel, especially F-4 Phantom jets. Johnson agreed to sell fifty Phantoms in his last month in office, and Israeli officials hoped to persuade Nixon to sell more. The Phantoms promised to swing the balance of power in the Middle East even further in Israel’s direction. Israeli airpower proved decisive in the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, and the War of Attrition between Israel and Egypt, which followed the 1967 war and ended in August 1970, showed the necessity of the sophisticated Phantoms to combat Soviet-supplied, Egyptian artillery along the Suez Canal Zone.³ Nixon’s first term witnessed a significant increase in military assistance to Israel that cannot be understood without looking at congressional—and, in particular, Senate—politics.

This chapter focuses on the battle between Henry “Scoop” Jackson (D-WA) and J. William Fulbright (D-AR) over U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East and, specifically, about military sales to Israel.⁴ Jackson, who ran for president in 1972 and 1976, and Fulbright, the longest-tenured chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, staked out very different positions for the proper relationship between the United States and Israel. Jackson viewed the Arab-Israeli conflict through the lens of the Cold War and wanted the president to authorize more military credit sales to Israel to match the growing Soviet presence in the region. Jackson planned to challenge détente, bolster his conservative position in foreign policy, and generate goodwill in the American Jewish community to support his upcoming bid for president. In doing so, he demonstrated that a senator can be just as apt to use the State of Israel to his advantage as the Israel lobby is to use a congressional official, which is a counterpoint to the argument made by Mearsheimer and Walt regarding the Israel lobby.⁵ Fulbright, on the other hand, advocated for more cooperation with the Soviet Union in the hopes of facilitating a comprehensive peace agreement through the United Nations. He regarded increased military sales as a threat to a potential peace agreement.

Instead of looking at the Arab-Israeli peace process through the executive branch, as other scholars have done, this chapter views the issue of military sales seen primarily through the legislative branch, using the often-overlooked collections of important congressmembers to make its case.⁶ That does not mean to suggest, however, that military sales and peace discussions existed in separate vacuums. Rather, the two have shared something of a symbiotic relationship, with each impacting discussions about the other. One reason Nixon sought to limit military sales was his fear that if Israel were too strong it would resist peace negotiations. Yet Israel fit perfectly into the Nixon Doctrine, which, in light of Vietnam, prescribed sending arms and providing a nuclear umbrella for regional allies in lieu of sending U.S. combat troops abroad. Therefore, the two discussions speak well to each other.

The debates about military aid for Israel revealed a developing alliance between U.S. conservatives and the State of Israel that would continue to impact U.S. foreign policy for decades to follow, in particular with regard to the peace process.⁷ As shown in the Johnson years, support for Israel started to come from both liberals and conservatives, and increasingly from the latter. This dynamic accelerated during the Nixon years. Conservatives and Cold War hawks like Jackson advanced the congressional critique of Nixon’s foreign policy, putting both Nixon and some liberals on the defensive. They disagreed with détente and aimed to continue the global war against communism, which included substantial military-aid packages, while liberals became more interested in human rights, nuclear nonproliferation, and reduced defense spending.

The perceived interests of U.S. conservatives and the State of Israel started to align. Both sides argued that a strong Israel was important for reasons of Cold War national security, and to achieve a lasting peace in the Middle East required large-scale military sales to Israel, including more Phantoms. For Israel, the United States could replace France as its primary weapons supplier, and for U.S. conservatives, especially in the context of the Vietnam War, Israel could become the new centerpiece of U.S. Cold War foreign policy. As the Cold War consensus fell apart, and as South Vietnam’s position became increasingly untenable, conservative members of Congress shifted more of their focus from East Asia to the Middle East, where they joined many liberals in a revamped, bipartisan support for Israel that resulted in a powerful strategic alliance.

More Phantoms?

Unsatisfied with the status quo, Nasser declared a “War of Attrition” against Israel beginning in March 1969. Using Soviet weaponry, Egyptian forces began a heavy bombardment of Israeli forces along the Suez Canal Zone.⁸ Israel was largely successful in repelling attacks and offered some of its own, conducting deep raids into Egyptian territory during the first few months of 1970, thanks to U.S.-made Phantoms.⁹ The first delivery of Phantoms, which arrived in September 1969, extended Israel’s strategic reach and abruptly changed the balance of power. Previously, Israel had launched only a few commando raids into Egypt. But by January 1970 the Phantoms allowed Israel to fly deep bombing raids into Egyptian territory, including the Cairo area. Egypt responded by asking Moscow for greater Soviet involvement, which in turn increased U.S. concern.¹⁰

Secretary of State William Rogers tried to assist U.N. special envoy Gunnar Jarring and restart the stalled peace process by offering his own plan. The Rogers Plan, which was announced on December 9, 1969, focused on an Israel-Egypt agreement as a first step in the peace process. Israel was to withdraw from Egyptian territory occupied in 1967, in return for a peace agreement with Egypt that included safe passage of Israeli shipping through the Suez Canal.¹¹ However, the Rogers Plan met a strong refusal. National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger opposed the plan, and Nixon demonstrated ambivalence, not support. As William Quandt writes in Peace Process, “The Israeli and Soviet rejections of the Rogers Plan, and Egypt’s nonacceptance, put a sudden end to the first Middle East initiative of the Nixon administration.”¹²

The War of Attrition entered a new phase in early 1970 when the Soviet Union secretly increased its military involvement in Egypt with Operation Kavkas.13 In response to Israeli air raids, and using the situation to its geopolitical advantage, the Kremlin substantially increased its military presence in Egypt by sending more than ten thousand “instructors” and “advisers,” along with numerous SA-3 surface-to-air missile systems, which were quietly installed along the Suez Canal. The Soviet Navy strengthened its presence in the Mediterranean, and Soviet pilots became actively engaged in Egyptian air defense.¹⁴ Soviet involvement reached a new level on April 18, when Soviet pilots chased down two Israeli jets that had been conducting reconnaissance inside Egypt. The Israeli jets were not attacked, but the Soviet willingness to directly challenge Israeli planes—and by extension the United States—brought with it the possibility for superpower confrontation in the Middle East.

Israel sought to advance its strategic alliance with the United States, but President Nixon responded coolly. Israeli officials asked to purchase an additional 125 planes (one hundred Skyhawks and twenty-five Phantoms) in September 1969. But Nixon declined to meet the new request. Nixon declined the same request again in March 1970, even after it became known that Moscow had increased its military involvement in Egypt. Nixon and Rogers believed that the existing order of fifty Phantoms was enough to keep the military balance of power in Israel’s favor; however, the administration reserved the right to sell new aircraft if the situation changed significantly.¹⁵ The administration viewed the Soviet weaponry as defensive in nature and wanted to avoid a further escalation unless it appeared that offensive weapons were being employed.¹⁶

Nixon declined to sell additional Phantoms to Israel for several reasons. For one, he believed that U.S. foreign policy in the region had been too biased in favor of Israel. He told Rogers, “I believe that an even-handed policy is, on balance, the best one for us to pursue as far as our own interests are concerned.”¹⁷ Second, Nixon recognized that Israel had secretly become a nuclear power and did not want to provide a vehicle to deliver such weapons. Third, he resented the influence of pro-Israel forces in Washington and was determined to conduct U.S. foreign policy apart from domestic influences. Fourth, he hoped peace discussions in the Middle East could advance détente with the Soviet Union.¹⁸ Finally, Nixon feared that if Israel had a steady supply of Phantom jets, it would be even less inclined to work with Jarring to implement Resolution 242. In short, by denying further Phantom sales to Israel, Nixon hoped to cultivate better relations with the USSR and Arab states while maintaining leverage with Israel. Therefore, Nixon was unreceptive to repeated calls for the sale of additional F-4s to Israel. But as it had for Johnson, the decision to withhold Phantom sales to Israel put Nixon on a collision course with Congress.

Henry “Scoop” Jackson and William Fulbright

The Democratic Party started to fracture on Israel, and an emerging conservative bloc in Congress, which included hawkish Democrats and some Republicans, proved able to redraw the contours of U.S.-Israel relations. That split was best exemplified by the contentious relations between Henry “Scoop” Jackson and James William Fulbright.

Jackson and Fulbright were senatorial colleagues, but the two were not friends. “Indeed,” says Jackson biographer Robert Kaufman, “the two men detested one another.”¹⁹ According to Helen Jackson, Henry’s wife, “The only thing that Scoop and Senator Fulbright agreed on was where to buy wing-tip shoes in London.”²⁰ Fulbright referred to Jackson as “the congressional spokesman for the military-industrial complex,” while Jackson regarded Fulbright as “arrogant and a hypocrite”—someone who claimed to have sympathies for people abroad who were hurt by the “arrogance of American power, yet voted for the Southern Manifesto of 1956 and against every major piece of civil rights legislation that came before the Senate.”²¹ After Fulbright lost the Arkansas Democratic primary to Dale Bumpers in 1974, Jackson and his staff celebrated with a case of whiskey.²²

In terms of U.S. foreign policy, Jackson and Fulbright represented the different ends of the political spectrum in the Democratic Party. Jackson was a realist and Cold War liberal who wanted nothing to do with détente and insisted on using military power to challenge the evil designs of the Soviet Union. Fulbright, on the other hand, was an idealist in the Wilsonian tradition who advocated a “new internationalism”—rooted in educational and cultural programs, reduced military spending, détente with the Soviet Union, and a more activist United Nations—to facilitate increased international understanding and a stronger position abroad. Fulbright hoped that a settlement to the Arab-Israeli crisis could be completed through the United Nations, which he explained in a speech on “A New Internationalism” to Yale University on April 4, 1971, as well as in his book about U.S. foreign policy, The Crippled Giant.23

The two had very different ideas about military sales and the Vietnam War. Jackson had long supported federal spending (especially defense spending) as a way to both contain communism and fuel the U.S. economy. Some officials, like Robert McNamara, labeled Jackson “the Senator from Boeing” for his efforts to secure defense contracts for the giant aviation company from his home state.²⁴ Sen. George Aiken (R-VT) once remarked that “other areas benefit from government contracts, too, but not all their elected members of Congress are as ardent in their endeavors as Scoop Jackson is.”²⁵ Jackson supported U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War until very late and sought to counterbalance the influence of the New Left by supporting federal defense spending in order to challenge communist aggression abroad.

While Jackson sought to expand defense spending and supported U.S. military involvement in East Asia, Fulbright took the opposite position. Although he actually sponsored the Tonkin Gulf Resolution that granted President Johnson virtually unlimited powers to wage a war in Vietnam, Fulbright soon withdrew his support and eventually emerged as one of the leading voices against U.S. military involvement in East Asia.²⁶ Because he was head of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the Johnson administration much disliked Fulbright’s opposition to Vietnam.

Perhaps the greatest source of conflict between Jackson and Fulbright was about U.S. involvement in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Jackson was one of the loudest and strongest senatorial voices in support of a pro-Israel policy. He regarded Israel as a strategic asset that could protect U.S. interests in the region and prevent, or at least limit, Soviet involvement in the Middle East. Although Fulbright continually stressed his support for Israel, he sought a more evenhanded policy in which Israel would not be given much preferential treatment. He viewed U.S. support for Israel as a liability because it soured relations with Arab states and could potentially undermine efforts to work constructively with the Soviet Union.

Jackson had supported the State of Israel from his childhood years. He recalled that his mother first instilled in him a desire to defend Jewish people. He described her as “a Christian who believed in a strong Judaism. She taught me to respect the Jews, help the Jews! It was a lesson I never forgot.”²⁷ In May 1944, Jackson publicly pledged: “If in any way, through my offices as a Congressman, I can forward the work of making the dream of a Jewish Homeland in Palestine come true, my most earnest efforts in this great humanitarian cause can be counted on.”²⁸ While a congressman in 1945, Jackson and seven fellow congressmen traveled to the Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany upon invitation from Dwight Eisenhower to see firsthand the horrors of Nazi atrocities. According to Kaufman, this experience, along with Jackson’s philo-Semitism, help to explain the senator’s strong support for the Jewish state.²⁹ Naturally, Jackson supported Harry Truman’s decision to immediately recognize the State of Israel in May 1948, and even before the Suez Crisis in the fall of 1956, provoked in part by Egyptian acceptance of a Soviet aid package, Jackson argued that the Soviet Union was “stirring a witches’ brew for the Free World in the Middle East.”³⁰

Fulbright supported the State of Israel but also wanted U.S. foreign policy to reflect a balanced desire to help both Israelis and Arabs. His position reflected the Eisenhower policy toward the Middle East; however, Fulbright later parted ways with Eisenhower. He objected to the Eisenhower Doctrine, which promised military or economic aid to any Middle Eastern country to resist the spread of communism, and instead offered a substitute resolution that called for freedom of navigation through the Suez Canal, a comprehensive settlement to the Arab-Israeli conflict, and a reaffirmation of America’s right to participate in regional collective security under Article 51 of the U.N. Charter.³¹