When Israel Lied to Lyndon Johnson About Not Introducing Nukes in the Mideast

Deceived: Lyndon Johnson, seen here during a 1968 cabinet meeting with Robert McNamara, did his best to keep Israel from acquiring nuclear weapons. Israel ignored him. (Lyndon Baines Johnson Library)

A lot of cant, a lot of misinformation, and a lot of bloated fears besiege the debate over Iran’s nukes. Jefferey Golderg, an excellent and courageous reporter on Islamism, manages to display all three traits in a single sentence in a column in The New York Times on Sunday.

The column previews Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to the White House on Monday—or rather, it previews the “fears” Netanyahu is bringing to the White House—namely, that Israel faces an “existential threat” from Iran should Iran continue to develop civil or offensive nuclear capabilities. There’ll be plenty to say in the days ahead about that visit. It’s difficult to overestimate how much of the prospects for a breakthrough in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict are riding on it. President Obama has raised expectations by making a Palestinian-Israeli peace a priority, but as The Economist notes, “by many measures, prospects for unpicking the Middle East’s intertwined tangles look as slim as ever.” Netanyahu is one of the reasons for that pessimism. He’s not interested in a two-state solution, and what he’s most interested in at the moment is diverting attention from the Palestinians—the heart of the issue—to a sideshow. Iran is it.

Iran isn’t about to lob nuclear-tipped missiles at Israel, especially not missiles with return address on them. Doing so would mean the end of Iran. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad may be compensating for his dim-wittedness with flaming rhetoric. But he’s neither crazy nor the man ultimately in charge. Most people know this. It makes Israel’s job of boning up Iran into a monster that much harder. Israel gets plenty of help. Goldberg’s column, particularly the one line I mentioned, is an example.

After mentioning the obvious (that “a nuclear Iran is not in the best interests of the United States,” though nor is a nuclear Russia or China or Pakistan or India or Israel, for that matter; that’s cant for you), Goldberg writes that a nuclear Iran “would mean, among other things, the probable beginning of a nuclear arms race in the world’s most volatile region, and it would mean that the 30-year-struggle between America and Iran for domination of the Persian Gulf will be over, with Persia the victor.”

Here’s the misinformation, which I define in the context of Goldberg’s column as a sin of pretty damning omission rather than an explicit attempt to mislead, though the result is the same: Israel began the nuclear arms race in the Middle East when Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger encouraged what John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson had done their damndest to prevent--Israel’s development of nuclear weapons at its Dimona facility.

Don’t take my word for it. Or Goldberg’s. Take Lyndon Johnson’s, in his Nov. 12, 1968 letter to then-Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol. You can hear Johnson’s despair at seeing a future he could no longer control (he was a few weeks away from ceding the office to Nixon), and you can just as clearly see, in retrospect, how Israel deceived Johnson about its pledge not to be first to introduce nuclear weapons in the Middle East, which proved empty:

As I look back over my five years in office, I find that one endeavor overshadows all those that have called upon my time and energy. This has been the search for peace. Central to it has been our effort to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons. The United States has assumed a special responsibility for this endeavor. It is at the heart not only of my own nation's security interests but also of the security of every nation in the world. As you know I am personally deeply committed to this task.

My deep concern on this subject was expressed to you personally as long ago as June 1964. Since then there has been no slackening of the arms race in the Near East , and the weapons introduced into the area have grown increasingly sophisticated. It would be a tragedy--an irreversible tragedy--if this arms race extended into the field of nuclear weapons or nuclear weapons delivery systems.

Secretary Rusk emphasized these points last month to Foreign Minister Eban when he stressed the United States ' concern that Israel 's continued delay in signing the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty will have the effect of increasing, rather than reducing, pressures for other area states to develop or acquire nuclear weapons.

We have carefully studied your Government's paper handed to Ambassador Barbour on October 28. We welcome the reaffirmation of your Government's assurances that Israel will not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons into the area. It is our strong conviction, however, that with a Non-Proliferation Treaty now in existence, only Israel 's adherence to that Treaty can give the world confidence that Israel does not intend to develop nuclear weapons.

I therefore welcome the statement in your Government's paper that you are engaged in intensive study of the implications of signing the Treaty. It is my earnest hope that this study will result in a decision to sign the Treaty at an early date. Israel 's failure to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty would be a severe blow to my Government's global efforts to halt the spread of nuclear weapons.

Needless to say, Israel neither signed the treaty nor lived up to its pledge. Jeffrey Goldberg mutes all that history to let Netanyahu’s “fears” control the agenda-setting. It’s a shoddy piece of journalism that borders on shilling. But Goldberg isn’t the exception. He’s the rule when it comes to coverage of the Iran nuclear issue: the issue is almost always presented, and perceived, through Israeli eyes, with the requisite blind eye to Israeli culpability—and what Johnson saw unmistakably as American failure to do better.

Goldberg doesn’t stop there. His sentence goes on, “and it would mean that the 30-year-struggle between America and Iran for domination of the Persian Gulf will be over, with Persia the victor.” That’s the bloated fear—bloated on bluster and, again, blindness. If Israel hasn’t managed to dominate the Middle East with nuclear weapons (or the United States or the Soviet Union), how would Iran? If Pakistan, a nuclear power in its own right, can’t even dominate its own tribal and northwestern frontiers, how will Iran dominate so much as the Persian Gulf?

Get ready in the days ahead for plenty more cant about Iran’s “existential threat” to Israel. But as Johnson would say if he were still around, despairing like the rest of us, or some of us: remember who started it. Netanyahu and his spokesmen will do their damndest to ensure that you don’t.

See Also:

• Is Iran a Nuclear Threat to Israel?
• How Should Obama Deal With Iran?
• Iran's Nuclear Weapons Program
• Israel Bombed Sudan. Rehearsal for Iran?
• Tell us Why It's Not Hypocrisy to Stop Iran's Bomb
• What If Iran Had Nuclear Weapons?