The Jews and Nixon — One Year Later

The confluence of several deeply troubling current events one year after President Richard Nixon's reelection caused Sidney Ballon to evaluate whether the benefits to the State of Israel were worth the liabilities of having Nixon in the White House

What is not good for America may not be good for the American Jewish community. …if we are to have a president who fancies himself to be above the law … [who] disregards basic ethical and more principles, then how can this be good for the Jewish community of America, and how can it be good for Israel?

THERE IS HARDLY ANYONE OF US who has not been emotionally drained by the events of the past few days. The attack upon Israel[1], the resignation of the vice president[2], the ongoing Watergate controversy[3], the threat of impeachment of the president, the suggestions of additional wrongdoing on his part have aroused us and angered us. The military alert yesterday[4] worried us. We feel frustrated and bewildered. We feel deceived and betrayed. One of the radio commentators a few days ago said it was all like watching a fast tennis match. The ball bounces quickly from one court to the other; our head bobs back and forth, and we can scarcely keep pace with all the action.
 
For us as Jews I think the mental and emotional strain has been greater than for anyone else. We are affected by the issues differently than non-Jews. The non-Jew is not moved as we are by the most important consideration of life and death for the State of Israel. The attack upon Israel was something that in itself was not so surprising. That the Arabs might want to lash out some day was not altogether unforeseen. But the timing was a surprise, and the strength of the Arab blow was a surprise. Israel had been overconfident, and the brevity of the Six-Day War was not equaled. The power of the Arab attack and Arab resistance to counter attack, even though now under control, was, indeed, frightening and was very costly. Israel could not afford to lose. One major defeat and Israel ceases to exist. For the Jew this was an intolerable situation — again a matter of life and death of the Jewish State. For the non-Jew all this was simply another phase of the global political competition being carried on between the Soviet Union and the United States. The reaction was inevitably more of the mind than of the heart.
 
The Jew has had a special problem also with respect to the Watergate developments and the presidential reaction. Watergate has disturbed the entire nation. At the climactic moment just after the president had fired Archibald Cox[5] and the Attorney General and his assistant had both resigned, and just before the president had yielded with regard to submitting the tapes to the court, even members of the president's own party wanted to proceed with his impeachment. The country seems to have been shaken as never before by what was considered the arrogant and high-handed action of the president, but for the Jew there were overtones to this problem unlike those which troubled the non-Jew. And the reason for the special reaction to the problem was the influence upon Jewish thinking of the Middle East War. Whatever else we may want to say about President Nixon, the Jewish community had to be pleased with his response to the plea to send help to Israel. To be sure he hesitated a day or so, but he came through in time with the sorely needed supplies and equipment that offset the Russian airlift to the Arabs. That left the Jew with a question in his mind. What deserves prior consideration? Shall the president be condemned for his Watergate maneuvers or shall he be praised for his help to Israel? There may be a few non-Jews who felt that it was inadvisable to think of impeachment while the international situation was fraught with so much peril, but even if they did so, it was not the same emotional question that it was for the Jew. For the non-Jew it was because of a logical weighing in the balance of the possibility of weakening national leadership, even if, perhaps, only temporarily, as the United States confronted the Soviet Union and the Arab world and the Middle East. For the Jew it was, as we noted a moment ago, the passionate concern for the survival of Israel. For the Jew, the conflict was, “Shall we punish Nixon, or swallow Nixon for the sake of Israel?”
 
The issue of the past week brought to mind the argument of a year ago. You will remember the division in the Jewish community just before the election. By far the majority of Jews normally vote the Democratic ticket. But now the story was that the Democratic candidate[6] might not be favorable enough to Israel, whereas Nixon was a much more reliable friend to the Jewish State. And so large numbers of Jews were switching party loyalty. They overlooked their normal political inclinations, and they overlooked the things they disliked about Nixon generally, and made their decision for him based on what they thought about his attitude toward Israel. About 35% of the Jews of the country, it is estimated voted for Nixon. We shall not debate the question of whether they were right or wrong. On the one hand you can say now they were right. He did come through in an emergency. On the other hand, you can also say that we do not really know whether the Democratic candidate might not have done the same thing, while those who voted for Nixon against their normal political convictions by so doing may also have helped to bring about the shameful Watergate crisis in our national government. You might even say that in so doing they even contributed to the Arab attack upon Israel because it is possible that this crisis deceived the Russians and the Arabs into thinking that Washington's attention had been diverted away from the Middle East, and so was a factor in the decision to attack. This of course is all speculation and cannot be proved. But right or wrong the same problem is with us today in different form. Fortunately the president has taken the pressure off the impeachment problem for the moment by changing his mind with regard to the tapes, but this may not end the matter. There are those who still think of impeachment and there are yet problems that may arise that may force the issue to the fore once again. Suppose there does come to light other evidences of wrongdoing that would justify impeachment. Suppose there is evidence of payoffs with respect to the dairy industry[7]. Suppose there was some manipulation with regard to the Russian wheat deal[8]. Suppose there is uncovered some proof of unethical procedure with regard to the $100,000 payment by Howard Hughes[9] or with regard to the purchase of the presidential estates. Suppose there are other examples of open and flagrant violation of the law. Shall we favor impeachment or shall we forgive because the president supplies Israel?
 
My immediate reaction is to answer as I believe most Jews will answer this question. In these dark days for Israel whatever tends to be good for Israel is what we want. That is emotional answer, but if we stop to think, a different way of looking at it may be worth our consideration. It may be that in the long run what is not good for America may not be good for Israel after all. What is not good for America may not be good for the American Jewish community. If we are confronted by a trend in our national government toward fascism, if we are to have a government oblivious to civil liberties with leadership concerned only with acquiring power, if we are to have a president who fancies himself to be above the law and believes that he alone knows what is best for us, if we are to have a president who thinks he has the right to conceal the facts and to lie to the public if he chooses to do so, if we have a government that believes the end justifies the means, that attempts to control the press, to practice dirty tricks, that disregards basic ethical and more principles, then how can this be good for the Jewish community of America, and how can it be good for Israel? Indeed, how can it be good for America itself and how can Jews flourish if democracy is throttled and we begin to drift slowly and unwittingly into dictatorship? Our record in fascist countries is not a good one.
 
This present administration in Washington has probably degraded the presidency to a greater extent than ever in American history. No prior administration has been accused to such a degree of immoral, unethical, and cynical practices. Other presidents have also been open to criticism at times, but no president has tried to accumulate as much personal power as the present one. If the trend he represents continues we shall bring our democracy to an end, and only if the American public is aroused and does something about it, can democracy survive. We, perhaps, cannot afford to overlook presidential wrongdoing, even if it seems Israel will benefit.
 
We Jews are, therefore, in a state of tension. Do we forgive Nixon everything if only he helps Israel or will the Jew and Israel be served best if we consider the total welfare of the United States? Each of us will have to answer for himself. The issue is not clear cut. In the meantime we may be grateful that the final decision has been postponed by giving up the tapes, and perhaps the shock of an aroused public will turn the tide and enable us to endure the problem until the next election. The total Watergate experience, as bad as it has been, may result in some good if it provokes us into a spiritual renewal, if it reminds us once again that “eternal vigilance is the price of liberty,”[10] if it motivates us to a new concern for democracy and the freedoms embodied in the Constitution of our country.
 
In the Torah portion we read the story of Noah and the flood. It is much more than a myth from ancient times about a worldwide flood and a righteous man. It is a message on behalf of morality and justice. God saw the earth, we are told, and it was corrupt. It was corruption which lead to destruction. Our society, like that of Noah's time, will be destroyed if the corruption that now fills it will continue. Noah was saved because he was said to be righteous and wholehearted. Let us also cherish the ideals of righteousness and with whole heart be committed to God's moral law. That is the only way to national salvation.
 
 


[1] The Yom Kippur War, also known as the 1973 Arab–Israeli War, was a war fought by the coalition of Arab states led by Egypt and Syria against Israel from October 6 to 25, 1973. The war began with an Arab surprise attack on Israeli positions in the Israeli-occupied territories on Yom Kippur. Both the United States and the Soviet Union initiated massive resupply efforts to their respective allies during the war, and this led to a near-confrontation between the two nuclear superpowers.

[2] On October 10, 1973, Spiro Agnew (1918 – 1996), the Vice President of the United States from 1969 to 1973 under President Richard Nixon, resigned and then pleaded no contest to criminal charges of tax evasion, part of a negotiated resolution to a scheme wherein he was accused of accepting more than $100,000 in bribes during his tenure as governor of Maryland.

[3] The Watergate scandal was a major political scandal that occurred in the United States in the 1970s as a result of the June 17, 1972 break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C., and President Richard Nixon's administration's attempted cover-up of its involvement. When the conspiracy was discovered and investigated by the U.S. Congress, the Nixon administration's resistance to its probes led to a constitutional crisis resolved by Nixon’s resignation August 8, 1974 more than nine months after this sermon was delivered.

[4] In the early morning of October 25, 1973, at the height of the Arab-Israeli War, the Nixon administration put U.S. military forces on higher alert — DEFCON 3. Defense Secretary James Schlesinger and National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger ordered the DEFCON to deter a feared Soviet intervention in the Middle East conflict. The Nixon White House could not keep this a secret and news of the alert soon reached the national media.

[5] On October 20, 1973 President Nixon ordered U.S. Attorney General Elliot Richardson to fire the top lawyer investigating the Watergate scandal, Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox. Richardson had promised Congress he would not interfere with the Special Prosecutor, and, rather than disobey the President or break his promise, he resigned. President Nixon subsequently asked Richardson's second-in-command, Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus, to carry out the order. He too had promised to not interfere, and also tendered his resignation. The third in command, Solicitor General Robert Bork (in 1987, to become a Ronald Reagan Supreme Court nominee who was rejected by the Senate), also planned to resign, but Richardson persuaded him not to in order to ensure proper leadership at the Department of Justice during the crisis. Bork carried out the President's order, thus completing the events generally referred to as the Saturday Night Massacre. The showdown occurred in response to Cox's insistence that Nixon comply with a court order to produce audio tapes of his conversations in the White House that could be incriminating.

[6] George Stanley McGovern (1922 –2012) was a U.S. Senator, and the Democratic Party presidential nominee in the 1972 presidential election.

[7] Ralph Nader, Public Citizen Inc. and other consumer groups charged that a controversial 1971 increase in milk price supports was a payoff for early contributions to President Nixon's 1972 re-election campaign. The White House denied any connection between the milk support decision and the fact that dairy industry groups contributed $427,500 to the Nixon campaign in 1972.

[8] The "Russian wheat deal" generally refers to the July-August 1972 sale by the United States to Russia of about 440 million bushels of wheat for about $700 million. The Russians had previously bought a relatively small quantity of U.S. Agricultural Products. U.S. grain exporters benefited heavily from the deal, dividing among them a $300 million taxpayer subsidy. The U.S. General Accounting Office released a report in July of 1973 saying that the sale had been mishandled and helped push food prices up, and that taxpayers paid unnecessary subsidies. The GAO said that Russia would have paid higher prices for the grain, reducing the subsidies paid to grain companies, and that farmers did not profit from the wheat deal; only exporters did.

[9] Howard Robard Hughes, Jr. (1905 –1976) was an American business tycoon, entrepreneur, investor, aviator, aerospace engineer, inventor, filmmaker and philanthropist. During his lifetime, he was known as one of the wealthiest self-made people in the world. Hughes vowed that he would pick a pliable president. "I am determined to elect a president of our choosing this year," he wrote in one 1968 memo, "and one who will be deeply indebted and who will recognize his indebtedness." To that end Hughes donated $100,000 to Hubert Humphrey's campaign and $100,000 to Richard Nixon,
a bribe that may have led to the break-in that started the chain of events that culminated with Nixon's resignation.
 
[10] Source unknown, attributed to Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, and others.