Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol at his Texas ranch in January 1968 to discuss U.S.-Israel relations. Johnson insisted that Israel enjoyed a position of strength and would be wise to pursue a peace program with its neighbors, rather than an arms program with the United States. Johnson told Eshkol bluntly, “Phantoms won’t determine security. Planes won’t change things that basically. The big problem is how 2–1/2 million Jews can live in a sea of Arabs.”151 Johnson also mentioned the stiff congressional resistance to recent military-assistance programs due to Vietnam, suggesting that if Israel hoped to get the Phantoms, Israelis needed to cultivate congressional support.152 The following day Johnson reiterated that the pursuit of peace, not weapons sales, would drive U.S. policymaking. He wanted to provide the Israeli Air Force with necessary equipment but stressed the importance of Jarring’s efforts to negotiate peace agreements, along with the need to reach an agreement with the Soviets on the arms race.153 Selling Phantoms would hinder, rather than advance, both of those goals. The Johnson administration hoped to use the Phantoms as leverage to ensure Israel’s best efforts to reach peace agreements.154 Nevertheless, Johnson agreed to put fifty planes in the production line in case an arms agreement with Moscow could not be reached.155
For Johnson, the decision to sell Phantoms to Israel had much more to do with a moral commitment to ensure Israel’s survival than with any strategic alliance between the two countries. On March 24, Johnson intimated to Arthur Goldberg that he felt compelled to sell the Phantoms because the Soviets would not agree to arms control. Johnson worried that Israel would be crushed by Soviet weaponry without American military assistance. He told Goldberg, “They don’t know when they’re going to be run over; they don’t know when they’re going to die; they don’t know when those goddamn Russians are going to come in there. They don’t know anything.”156 A week later, overwhelmed by the Vietnam War and domestic divisiveness, the embattled Johnson became a “lame duck” president as he declared he would not seek reelection.
Administration officials stressed the need to link weapons sales to peace talks and nuclear nonproliferation. According to Quandt, “some” administration officials “felt that Israel should be asked to agree to the principle of full withdrawal in the context of peace in exchange for the jets. Others, fearful of Israeli nuclear development, argued that Israel should be required to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) before receiving U.S. arms.” Although Israel would not publicly acknowledge possessing any nuclear weapons, Israeli representatives assured U.S. officials that Israel would not be the first Middle East country to “introduce” nuclear weapons into the region. The United States never reached a quid pro quo with Israel regarding nuclear nonproliferation and weapons sales.157
Congress offered solid backing for the sale of Phantoms to Israel, hopefully (though not necessarily) in the context of peace agreements in the Middle East. During an election year, some Republicans challenged Democrats over their pro-Israel credentials. Representative Widnall pointed out several times in a speech to the House floor, “It was not a Republican administration” that withheld jet sales to Israel to counterbalance Soviet MiGs going to Egypt, or provided secret arms financing to Arab states, or sent fighter jets to Jordan.158 Rep. S. Fletcher Thompson (R-GA) called the U.S. policy of providing jets to Jordan “idiotic” and insisted on more weapons sales to Israel, particularly fighter jets.159 Democratic representative Farbstein noted the ever-increasing numbers of Soviet weapons being sent to Egypt, including ground-to-ground missiles, and urged the government to sell Israel enough planes “to deter the Arab States and their Russian masters from starting hostilities.”160
The State of Israel and pro-Israel forces in the United States undertook efforts to pressure Johnson into selling the Phantoms. Israel sent Yitzhak Rabin, former chief of staff (and future prime minister), as ambassador to Washington to advance the Israeli position with American officials. According to Spiegel, “In the Jewish community, every major organization stressed the importance of the jets in its political or educational activities (depending on the nature of the group).”161 Non-Jewish organizations, like the AFL-CIO, Democratic Action, and the American Legion, also endorsed the sale.162 But according to Bard, Johnson was especially irritated by pro-Israel lobbyists who pushed for weapons sales to Israel but failed to support the administration on Vietnam, which made him less inclined to sell the Phantoms.163
Congress tried to force the sale of Phantoms through legislation. In April, Rep. Bertram Podell (D-NY), in coordination with AIPAC, introduced a “sense of the House” resolution favoring the sale.164 While not a binding piece of legislation, a sense of the House seeks to demonstrate general support for a certain measure. Ultimately, more than one hundred representatives and a few senators either signed or voiced support for the resolution.165 In June, Sen. Stuart Symington (D-MO) “threatened to kill the military sales bill if the president did not deliver the Phantoms,” though Symington’s motivation for the sale was likely due to the fact that they would be built in his home state.166 The following month, Representative Wolff offered an amendment to the Foreign Assistance Act of 1968 that ordered the president to sell fifty Phantoms to Israel and replace losses suffered in the 1967 war. The Wolff amendment, after numerous representatives rose in support, cleared the House as part of the Foreign Aid Bill of 1968.167
Unlike Podell’s resolution from April, Wolff’s amendment did not have the backing of AIPAC because the legislation would have intruded too much on the president’s right to conduct foreign relations. I. L. Kenen, head of AIPAC, informed the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that a resolution like Podell’s that expressed the “sense of the Congress” would be sufficient.168 According to John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, “AIPAC generally followed ‘Kenen’s Rules’ to advance Israel’s cause. Rule No. 1 was: ‘Get behind legislation; don’t step out in front of it (that is, keep a low profile).’”169 Senator Church offered a substitute amendment to the Foreign Aid Bill that indicated congressional support for sale of the Phantoms, which passed the Senate on July 31.170 Senator Javits urged President Johnson to take note of the section of the bill that called for immediate negotiations for the sale of supersonic jets to Israel as a deterrent force against future aggression.171
The Phantoms became an issue leading up to the 1968 presidential election. AIPAC, more commonly associated with lobbying the legislative branch than the executive branch, secured statements of support for the sale from the major presidential candidates and worked to get favorable planks at each party convention in 1968.172 Presidential hopefuls Richard Nixon and Hubert Humphrey trumpeted their support for the sale while speaking at the B’nai B’rith convention in Washington on September 8. President Johnson spoke after the two candidates and shifted the discussion to the need for an arms-limitation agreement with the Soviet Union. The next day both Nixon and Humphrey reasserted their positions, and Humphrey claimed the sale of Phantoms was “now a necessity.”173
Congress displayed strong, bipartisan support for the sale.174 After rumor spread that the administration was leaning against it, Hugh Scott (R-PA) read on the Senate floor part of a letter he had just sent President Johnson that restated his repeated calls for the sale of the Phantoms. Scott also suggested his close relationship with AIPAC when he claimed to be “responsible in large measure for the language in the 1968 Republican platform which urged that the United States provide supersonic jets to Israel.”175 Rep. Jacob Gilbert (D-NY) called for the sale of fifty Phantoms to Israel to restore the balance of power; Rep. Ovie Clark “O. C.” Fisher (D-TX) wanted the U.S. government “to provide Israel with the arms that it needs for its own defense”; and Representative Blackburn went so far as to write a letter to Johnson to explain that even though he voted against the Foreign Assistance Act of 1968, he still wanted Johnson to sell the planes to Israel.176 Representative Podell criticized the State Department for not recommending the sale and pointed out, “Both Houses of Congress believe that Phantom jets should be sold to Israel. The major party candidates for President are in full agreement on this policy. The failure to agree to this sale brings joy only to the Arab States and to
