Yeah, that really makes sense.

Nixon’s problem was Liberals — of whom many were Jewish.

PC Kills

I agree with Golda Meir, this was a tad more important than some rough talk in private.

“President Richard Nixon – overriding inter-administration objections and bureaucratic inertia – implemented a breathtaking transfer of arms, code-named Operation Nickel Grass, that over a four-week period involved hundreds of jumbo U.S. military aircraft delivering more than 22,000 tons of armaments.

“This was accomplished, noted Walter J. Boyne in an article in the December 1998 issue of Air Force Magazine, while “Washington was in the throes of not only post-Vietnam moralizing on Capitol Hill but also the agony of Watergate. . . . Four days into the war, Washington was blindsided again by another political disaster — the forced resignation of Vice President Spiro Agnew.”

“’Both Kissinger and Nixon wanted to do [the airlift],” said former CIA deputy director Vernon Walters, “but Nixon gave it the greater sense of urgency. He said, ‘You get the stuff to Israel. Now. Now.’”

Boyne, in his book The Two O’Clock War, described a high-level White House meeting on October 9:

As preoccupied as he was with Watergate, Nixon came straight to the point, announcing that Israel must not lose the war. He ordered that the deliveries of supplies, including aircraft, be sped up and that Israel be told that it could freely expend all of its consumables — ammunition, spare parts, fuel, and so forth — in the certain knowledge that these would be completely replenished by the United States without any delay.
White House Chief of Staff Alexander Haig concurred:

“As soon as the scope and pattern of Israeli battle losses emerged, Nixon ordered that all destroyed equipment be made up out of U.S. stockpiles, using the very best weapons America possessed. . . . Whatever it takes, he told Kissinger . . . save Israel.”

“It was Nixon who did it,” recalled Nixon’s acting special counsel, Leonard Garment. “I was there. As [bureaucratic bickering between the State and Defense departments] was going back and forth, Nixon said, this is insane. . . . He just ordered Kissinger, “Get your ass out of here and tell those people to move.”

When Schlesinger initially wanted to send just three transports to Israel because he feared anything more would alarm the Arabs and the Soviets, Nixon snapped: “We are going to get blamed just as much for three as for 300. . . . Get them in the air, now.”

That’s one thing our leaders seem to have lost sight of. Might as well hang for a sheep as hang for a lamb!

And while Curtis makes some good comments in Nixon’s defense, today’s right shouldn’t get too carried away with Nixon nostalgia. He was a big-government Republican, notably he instituted wage and price controls.

Thanks for the thoughtful response. I personally think that Nixon was a mixture just of good and bad points, like the majority of us.

My point is that Nixon’s actions in supporting Israel are much more important than one or two possibly offensive comments he might have made. Actions speak louder than words. The fact that he acted strongly to support Israel is what really counts in the end.

I have a large number of Irish ancestory, but I wasn’t offended by his comments about Irishmen. I don’t know any mean drunk Irishmen, but perhaps Nixon met some. I would care a great deal if he had acted on his comments to hurt people because they arere Irish.

2. Had Nixon been Commander-in-Chief after 9/11, we’d be in much better shape today in the Mideast than we are. (NB: this is not intended as a comprehensive assessment of him.)