JFK Was Enraged at 'Zionist Control' in Politics

Back in the shtetl the two highest values in Jewish life were wealth
and learning. Well I'm pitting the learning against the wealth here.
I'm going to keep on my theme of Jewish wealth in politics, inasmuch
as it distorts our policy in the Middle East.

Last year Seymour Hersh, god bless him, openly spoke of "Jewish money"
when he criticized the push to attack Iran. And my correspondent Nim
Chimpsky (I wish I knew who he was, but I trust him anyway) just sent
me a selection from Hersh's 1991 book "The Samson Option: Israel's
Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy":
"... [Governor Abraham Ribicoff of Connecticut said that in 1960,] 'I
told Kennedy I was going to get in touch with Abe Feinberg, who I
thought was a key Jew. I arranged a meeting [with Kennedy] in
Feinberg's apartment in the Hotel Pierre and we invited all the
leading Jews.' About twenty prominent businessmen and financiers
showed up.

"... The group agreed on an initial contribution of $500,000 to the
presidential campaign, with more to come.
'I called him [Kennedy] right away,' said Feinberg. 'His voice
broke. He got emotional' with gratitude.

"Kennedy was anything but grateful the next morning in describing the
session to Charles L. Bartlett, a newspaper columnist and close
friend. He had driven to Bartlett's home in northwest Washington and
dragged his friend on a walk, where he recounted a much different
version of the meeting the night before. 'As an American citizen he
was outraged,' Bartlett recalled, 'to have a Zionist group come to him
and say: "We know your campaign is in trouble. We're willing to pay
your bills if you'll let us have control of your Middle East
policy.'" Kennedy, as a presidential candidate, also resented the
crudity with which he'd been approached. 'They wanted control,' he
angrily told Bartlett.

"Bartlett further recalled Kennedy promising to himself that if he
ever did get to be President, he was going to do something about it"--
a candidate's perennial need for money and resulting vulnerability to
the demands of those who contributed. Kennedy, in fact, kept that
promise before the end of his first year in office, appointing a
bipartisan commission in October to recommend ways to broaden "the
financial base of our presidential campaigns." In a statement that
was far more heartfelt than the public or the press could perceive, he
criticized the current method of financing campaigns as "highly
undesirable" and "not healthy" because it made candidates "dependent
on large financial contributions of those with special interests."
Presidential elections, Kennedy declared, were "the supreme test of
the democratic process" in the United States. (pages 96-97)

Nim adds: JFK wanted a nuclear-free near east with inspectors at
Dimona and a resolution to the Palestinian refugee problem (which
would be a policy based on American interests or perhaps even regional
or international interests). I don't think his patrons liked those
ideas much. they wanted a policy based on Israel's interests. and as
they say, when you pay the piper, you call the tune.

To which I'd add: Israel got nukes. Nukes seem to have played a role
in causing the '67 War. Now Iran wants nukes; and this time around the
U.S. is contemplating military attacks. Maybe it's time to get nukes
out of the Middle East? Isn't Dimona a bargaining chip?

As for the Pierre Hotel incident, here is Abba Eban writing (in "Dewey
David Stone: Prototype of an American Zionist," published in an
American Jewish Historical Society collection) on the same subject:

"[W]hen he became a presidential candidate in 1960, John F.
Kennedy was again plagued by memories of his father's equivocal
attitude on Nazism. Dewey [Stone, a leading Israel lobbyist] suggested
that the candidate accept the invitation of the Zionist Organization
of America to be the principal speaker at its convention. Kennedy
presented his views with eloquence and passion and firmly dissociated
himself from his father's war-time attitude. At a meeting arranged in
the apartment of Abraham Feinberg at the Hotel Pierre in August 1960,
Dewey Stone, with a group of influential Jewish leaders, interrogated
Kennedy stringently on matters affecting Jews and Israel. It appeared
that Kennedy made honest and candid responses to the questions asked
of him....

"No historian would question the judgment that without the support
of American Jewry, Israel's emergence out of vulnerability and
weakness into sovereignty and successful resistance could not have
been conceived."

Reminds you of Obama and AIPAC, doesn't it? I wonder how secretly
ticked off Obama is. Of course the only religious obeisance anyone
mentions apropos of Kennedy is his speech to the Houston Protestant
ministers in '60. Slowly but surely, knowledge of the Israel lobby is
growing.

http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2008/07/jfk-was-enraged-at-zionist-control-through-c
rucial-campaign-contributions.html

http://ihr.org/

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