Will the State Department Remain Israeli-Occupied Territory?

By Richard H. Curtiss

"After Shultz, what? It will all depend on whether a Bush administration is of the same heel-dragging, nitpicking, once-stung-twice-shy persuasion—that is to say, if the Israeli hammerlock on US freedom of action holds fast. If so, the Middle East, which has already produced at least five wars and two superpower confrontations, will continue to be the deadliest and most dangerous corner of the world, the more so as other regional conflicts seem to be winding down." —Philip Geyelin, Washington Post, Dec. 13, 1988.

It's certain that George Bush plans to be a hands-on president working with an experienced staff of Washington insiders who will take their orders from him and reserve their loyalty for him. This has pleased observers warily on the lookout for White House appointees with separate Middle East agendas. Based upon selections to date, it appears that the Israeli Embassy won't be receiving reports of secret White House deliberations before concerned American officials do, as was the case in Ronald Reagan's White House before the post-Iranscarn White House housecleaning, and in previous administrations.

Why was it necessary for patriotic officials to resort to leaks to the press to block a trip that, from all appearances, could have resulted in a serious penetration of military security arrangements between the US and official and unofficial American allies in the Middle East?

The appointment of Lawrence Sidney Eagleburger as deputy secretary of state means things may remain murky in Foggy Bottom, however, even after the departure of George Shultz who, according to a Feb. 4, 1986, profile by Washington Post State Department correspondent Don Oberdorfer, was "considered the most pro-Israeli figure at the top of the Reagan administration."

Shultz, surely the only secretary of state in history to keynote three national conventions of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in six years, pledged in one of those appearances that by the time he left office he would have bound the US to Israel with such a maze of institutional ties that it would take any successor at least eight years to extricate the United States from them. By manipulation of the State Department personnel system, or by allowing it to be manipulated on his watch, is it possible that Shultz has succeeded?

State Department Superstars

Washington Post staff writer John Goshko noted in a Jan. 6 article that in staffing key State Department positions, incoming Secretary James Baker "theoretically can choose from a pool of about 100 officers from the senior Foreign Service," but that within that group "there is a smaller number, generally estimated at 10 to 20 people, who are regarded by their peers in government as superstars." In Goshko's listing of 12 of these "superstars," eight are Jewish, or noted for their pro-Israel bias, or both.

Since the US has diplomatic relations with well over 100 countries, this should make no difference. However, the problem of how to cajole a Likudist Israel to match the PLO's willingness to compromise for peace should be at the top of the Bush foreign policy agenda, in the province of the "superstars." If it isn't, America's European allies may soon put it there. They blame unconditional US support for Israel for many of the problems erupting from the area into Europe. Under those circumstances, will not Shultz's personnel legacy inspire serious misgivings among America's deeply skeptical European allies, increasingly suspicious Middle Eastern friends, and the American public as well?

One obvious answer was for Baker to reach outside the phalanx of Shultzera "superstars" to foreign policy experts of previous Republican administrations. That is what Baker did. The deputy he picked for himself, however, was Eagleburger, a Henry Kissinger protege once known in both the White House and the State Department as "Henry's hatchet man." When Kissinger was Richard Nixon's national security adviser, Eagleburger was on his staff. When Kissinger became secretary of state in Nixon's second term, he took Eagleburger, a career Foreign Service officer, with him. Eagleburger spent the Carter years as US Ambassador to Yugoslavia and returned to serve in State's number three job for the first Reagan term. After his 1984 retirement, Eagleburger became the New York director of Kissinger Associates. He thus maintained his dose association with Henry Kissinger who, until Shultz beat him at his own game, had been regarded as the most pro-Israel secretary of state in US history.

Named in part after his father, Leon Sidney Eagleburger, Lawrence Sidney Eagleburger added a narcissistic twist to the family tradition by naming his three sons, respectively, Lawrence Scott, Lawrence Andrew, and Lawrence Jason Eagleburger. Eagleburger has been described as having more of the demeanor of a bartender than a diplomat. He is best remembered in the State Department, however, for his strong pro-Israel bias and unconcealed hostility for Israel's Arab neighbors.

Does it matter, so long as the president sets foreign policy goals and guidelines and Secretary of State James Baker carries them out loyally? The short answer is yes. Letting Israel's American supporters run riot in the State Department for another four years is a case of setting the fox to guard the henhouse.

DeConcini's Aborted Trip

A case in point occurred in January. Arizona Senator Dennis DeConcini, a member of the defense and foreign operations subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee, who has accepted $60,000 from pro-Israel political action committees over the past six years, informed the Pentagon that he wanted to visit, accompanied by his wife, nine Arab countries plus Israel in 12 days between the convening of the 101st Congress and inauguration day. The Department of Defense offered a military aircraft and a military escort but then learned that the DeConcini party would include a third member. He is Earl J. Katz, an Arizona real estate investor who has been DeConcini's campaign finance chairman for many years. His position was enhanced by Katz's active role in the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, and as a director of a pro-Israel political action committee, Arizona Politically Interested Citizens, for more than six years.

Where was the Department of State, which, until the Kissinger era, traditionally played the role of defender of long-term US foreign policy Interests against the encroachments of domestic political operators?

DeConcini hired Katz for the duration of the proposed trip as a temporary employee of the Senate to circumvent Pentagon rules about the use of military aircraft by unauthorized civilians. When DeConcini also insisted upon a security clearance to enable Katz to participate in discussions of secret US and Arab military plans throughout the region, defense officials balked. DeConcini insisted and the Defense Department caved in, as it usually does when dealing with senators who have their hands on Pentagon purse strings.

Officials leaked DeConcini's plans, however. Calls to DeConcini's office by the Washington Report were not returned. Then, however, insistent questions by Washington Post investigative reporter Charles Babcock elicited an astonishing series of admissions from a DeConcini spokesman.

Katz was not only the senator's fundraiser, but also his primary Middle East adviser for the past several years. Katz had accompanied DeConcini on two previous trips to the region.

Asked if it was not unusual for a powerful Democratic member of the Senate Appropriations Committee to take his Middle East advice from a real estate investor who, because of his association with a group actively lobbying on behalf of a Middle Eastern country, might be presumed to have a separate agenda, DeConcini's spokesman Robert W. Maynes was defensive.

The fact that in this case the State Department failed to do its job is a disturbing indication that George Shultz may have accomplished his goal on behalf of Israel.

Katz, he explained, "does an extraordinary amount of work for Dennis. In effect, he has been a staff member for years and we haven't had to pay him."

Besides, Maynes told the Post reporter, Katz planned to pay back to the US government the $115 he would earn as a bogus Senate staffer, and "is paying all the expenses they will let him pay." What's more, it was Katz who had made the arrangements for the party's briefings at each stop.

"Obviously this is not a pleasure junket," Maynes told Babcock. "Earl is being given the opportunity to work his tail off."

DeConcini did not depart as scheduled on Jan. 7. After Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-WV), the new chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, received a call from a journalist, he withdrew his approval on Jan. 6 for Katz to participate in the trip. DeConcini and his wife then postponed their departure.

Why was it necessary for patriotic officials to resort to leaks to the press to block a trip that, from all appearances, could have resulted in a serious penetration of military security arrangements between the US and official and unofficial American allies in the Middle East? Where was the Department of State which, until the Kissinger era, traditionally played the role of defender of long-term US foreign policy interests against the encroachments of domestic political operators?

"The State Department is anxious that he make the trip," Maynes insisted to Babcock, so that Arab countries might persuade DeConcini to be less vociferous in opposing arms sales to them.

Just how vociferous Katz can be on the subject is revealed by a letter Katz wrote to the Arizona Republic in September 1987 listing three of the countries on the itinerary, Jordan, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, among states which "should not be sold offensive weapons or state-of-the-art technology."

Clearly, whatever Katz's personal motivation for being willing to "work his tail off" while participating in classified military briefings in the Middle East, the State Department should have been backing up the reluctance of the Pentagon to grant Katz a security clearance based upon a status that, when revealed, would create embarrassing problems both for the US and for leaders of friendly Middle East states. The fact that in this case the State Department failed to do its job on behalf of the United States is a disturbing indication that George Shultz may have accomplished his goal on behalf of Israel.

Richard H. Curtiss, a retired U.S. Foreign Service Information Officer, is the author of A Changing Image: American Perceptions of the Arab-Israeli Dispute, and chief editor of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.