Customer Reviews

Support Any Friend: Kennedy's Middle East and the Making of the U.S.-Israel Alliance (Council on Foreign Relations Book)

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This superb history of Kennedy's Mid-East policy wins the trifecta - it is rigorously substantive, beautifully written, and shockingly timely. Bass draws masterfully on documentary sources (many never before available) to bring JFK, Ben Gurion and Nasser to life. Touching on topics like nuclear inspections and American support for the conservative Saudi regime, the book has a fascinating historical perspective on some of the most vexing issues of today. It is a must-read for anyone interested in JFK, Israel, or America's relationship with the Arab world.

Impeccable research and solid writing from a historian who has no ax to grind, just a simple desire to explain the origins of U.S.-Israeli friendship.

This is the best of the new Kennedy books out there. I'd read Bass's smart writings on the Middle East in various newspapers and magazines, but his book is another achievement altogether. He delves deeply into the documentary record -- finding and interpreting the paper trail on JFK's Middle East policy like no other historian I know of. You get that you-are-there, page-turning sensation of popular history along with a mind-boggling amount of original research and smart analysis. But what really made me love this book is Bass's style, which is clever, witty, smooth, salted with great turns of phrase. If you're interested in Kennedy or the Middle East -- or politics in general -- you'll want to read this book (and you'll spend your weekend unable to put it down).

This book and "Death of a Generation" are the two best I've read about President Kennedy's foreign policy record. If you have any interest in how the United States and Israel got into the relationship that exists now, this book will be of great interest. Highly recommended for anyone interested in Presidential history.

This book is both a great read and a significant work of scholarship. Bass covers the territory with panache and depth, providing a thoughtful, nuanced look at the origins of the US-Israel relationship. His writing is crisp, inviting and colorful - it is hard to forget the manifold and varied picture he creates of the giants of history who forged the very policies whose repercussions we feel so stunningly today. It is also very hard to put the book down. Such a combination is rare and welcome, and makes this book a must for anyone even remotely interested in the Middle East and America (which should be all of us, these days...).

"Support Any Friend" explains the genesis of the American-Israeli

relationship in clear and engaging prose and makes good use of details that

will fascinate any student of the Middle East. The research is original, and

weaved expertly into prevailing wisdom on recent Middle Eastern history. One

wouldn't think of this as a fast read, but it was.

This definitely fills the gap in scholarship that surrounds the nature of the American relationship with Israel. Although The Israelis were told to not be `the first nation to employ nuclear weapons in the middle east' Mr. Eban replied to Mr. Rusk saying `We wont be the second either'. Thus this book describes the complicated political game that was the 1960s relationship with Israel in which America looked the other way at the Dimona project while JFK declared he would support `any friend'. Nasser helped cement the relationship by excepting Czech arms. Thus this books shows the truth behind Americas ties to Israel wasn't `Jewish influence' but rather cold war politics. A fascinating and important account.

Seth J. Frantzman

This book came so quickly that I haven't had the chance to read it. Thanks. Read about Mr Bass in Philip Shenon's book about the 9-11 Commission.

Parts of this exhaustively researched historical account read like a novel. Looking back forty years later on Middle East crises of the early 1960s, Bass shows a remarkable sense of depth and history. His accounts of West Wing meetings and diplomatic spats can be fascinating, and the image he presents of JFK's relationship with Israel and its leaders is totally believable and in keeping with what we already know about JFK in other arenas. The president is deeply engaged when he wants to be, acts out of principle, and has an all-too-honest view of humans' frailties. Interestingly, Bass found little evidence that domestic politics or the "Israel lobby" affected foreign policy in the Kennedy years.

Parts of the book are a bit too detailed and will be of interest mainly to specialists, but I do recommend the book to anyone interested in Israel, the Middle East generally, or America in the 1960s.

Warren Bass's book argues that the U.S. military alliance with Israel started under JFK's administration, and that this shift in policy was intended primarily to counter the USSR. Bass asserts that domestic U.S. political advantages were not a determining factor in JFK's policy shift, and that Israeli-Arab issues had very little weight.

As background, Bass cites JFK's notes of his trip to the region in 1951, in which JFK described the Israelis as "tough, rugged, cocky ... very aggressive -- confident. Arabs fear expansion -- say it is inevitable." Bass then recounts Israel's 1956 invasion of Egypt and brief annexation of the Sinai. The invasion was turned back by Eisenhower's diplomatic pressure, and U.S.-Israel relations were colored by this episode so long as Ike remained President.

Bass documents how JFK, as President starting in 1961, not only put aside his observations of 1951 and the experience of 1956, but also turned away from advisors who knew the region and instead brought in globally-minded Cold Warriors (as he did for Vietnam policy).

In the Cold Warriors' eyes, the key fact was the Russian-Egyptian military relationship that had grown up after the Israeli-French-British invasion of 1956. Bass shows how JFK's emphasis on countering the USSR led to approving for the first time significant arms supplies to Israel, thus reversing Eisenhower's policy and putting the U.S. on the side of the 1956 invaders.

Yemen also merits a long chapter. Yemen's monarchy was toppled in September, 1962. Egypt and the U.S. both recognized the new Yemeni government, but the Saudi monarchy felt threatened and sponsored an armed opposition. Egypt sent troops to ensure that the new Yemeni regime would endure, while JFK held the Saudi king's hand to assure him that he would be okay. Bass recounts how in the Cold Warriors' eyes Egypt's involvement constituted a crisis that proved Ben Gurion's contention that Nasser was the new Hitler (see page 155), thus supporting the U.S.'s reversal in policy about arming Israel.

Relative to U.S. domestic politics, Bass makes a substantial effort to argue that they did not have a critical influence. Contrary evidence, however, is hardly swept under the rug. Bass notes that domestic U.S. politics was decisive in generating constant Congressional pressure on JFK to support Israel. He also says that JFK "was unapologetic about considering domestic political factors in his Middle East policy-making" (page 6).

Most particularly, Bass describes how Deputy White House Counsel Myer (Mike) Feldman, who was JFK's "de facto ambassador to the American Jewish community" (pages 6-7), not only participated in most of JFK's inside policy making on Israel but got involved in implementation as well. Feldman conducted a key negotiation with the Israeli government on the precedent-setting U.S. missile sales and, at one point, the State Department was required to consult Feldman on all messages regarding Israel's nuclear weapons program (page 212).

In the end, however, Bass concludes that JFK was not "sentimental" enough for the kind of blind, ethnic attachment that would overrule Cold War policy considerations (page 7).

Bass is fair enough to note in his Acknowledgements that his research was supported by his Israeli family members and by a Wexner fellowship. Wexner's purposes include "bring[ing] a Jewish language of discourse to ... policy and decision-making in the [American Jewish] community." Bass's sources outside the U.S. and Israel are sparse, although his research was directed by a prominent scholar who is not sympathetic to Israeli geopolitics.

Overall, the book provides enough evidence for readers to make up their own minds about the facts and Bass's conclusions.