Purely Commentary

Memoirs of Eminent News Analyst C. L. Sulzberger Throw
Light on World Affairs Affecting Israel and World Jewry
With Kissinger and Other Notables Passing in Review

By Phih
Slomovitz

Expert Reporting, Interviewing and News Analyses With Admonitions of Things to Expect in Sulzberger's Memoirs

Grave admonitions about a future yet
to be faced fill the pages of Cyrus L.
Sulzberger's "An Age of Mediocrity" (Mac-
millan). They intermingle with fascinating
experiences during the decade under re-
view. The reader meets the giants of our
time in a volume that describes this era
as one of mediocrity. Sulzberger may be
challenged on the subject, yet he provides
much food for thought and discussion. He
poses many problems, and the heroes under
review are both the practical and the pro-
phetic.
The reader learns something about au-
thor Sulzberger from his collected essays
and 'interviews. A new approach is made
to Secretary of State Kissinger, David Ben-
Gurion, Golda Meir, Abba Eban, Anwar el-
Sadat, Mohammed Heykal—an array of the
leading personalities in the world is under
scrutiny. The New York Times news ana-
lyst, author of that paper's "Foreign Af-
fairs' column, provides a summary of the
tenseness- of a decade, while providing
means for speculation as to the future.
Sulzberger's views on mediocrity may
be debatable. He describes the world's
rulers of our time as "efficient and com-
petent" but none "genuinely popular or
charismatic," yet admits that while "none
is a superman or a giant" that "each got
things done." He has interesting things to
report about Lyndon Johnson. There is
much, very much about Richard M. Nixon,
and the privilege he had of interviewing the
President exclusively is fully recorded. As
a matter of fact, his NYTimes associates
were angered by his role as a maverick in
securing that interview on the day he was
typing his story.
The Middle East situation becomes es-
pecially understandable from the Sulzberger
records. A realistic picture emerges. Much
of what he was told—all the Arab threats,
the Israelis' concerns—all the views of the
statesmen involved in the controversy and
the danger could have been spoken today.
The danger existed, it emerged after the
Sulzberger book had gone to press. What
was said serves as admonition of the situa-
tion as it exists, as a heritage of what al-
ready existed.
The Nixon alert of troops on Oct. 25,
which is believed to have saved Israel from
an imminent Russian attack together with
the Arabs, brings back recollections of the
"hot line" that was in action during the
Johnson era, after the Six-Day War. John-
son had acted as speedily on June 22, 1967,
as Nixon did on Oct. 25, 1973. To quote a
paragraph from Sulzberger:
"As the story emerged, Israeli troops
were driving into Syria and toward Damas-
cus when a Soviet warning came . over the
teletype (which is what the hot line is)
warning that if we didn't make the Israelis
stop, Russia would take action 'including
military action.' Johnson promptly ordered
a formation of ships from the Sixth Fleet,
including carriers, to turn eastward and
head for Israel."
Sulzberger had discussed the Middle
East problem (March 10, 1971) with the
then Secretary of State William Rogers.
That's when Rogers said he was convinced
Egypt's Prime Minister Mohammed Fawzi
genuinely wants peace, and he told Sulz-
berger:
"We never insisted on total withdrawal
by the Israelis. However, for the Sinai
Peninsula we want the 1967 boundary re-
stored. This would exclude the Gaza Strip.

An Historic Note from
Sulzberger's Memoirs

I dined at the Eytans' (Walter is Israeli
ambassador to Paris) and was lucky
enough to sit next to Madame Jean-Jacques
Servan-Schreiber, a pretty twenty-six-year-
old. Her father and grandfather had both
been cavalry officers. Jean-Jacques' grand-
father, a German Jew, was Bismarck's
secretary for twenty years. One day he
went into a restaurant and saw a sign "No
Jews Allowed." He immediately packed up
and left Germany with his family, settled
in Paris, and would allow no one to use a
word of German before him. He began
Les Echos and from it the family fortune
again prospered.

2—Friday, Nov. 30, 1973

'I have raised my children on the credo
that they should consider themselves Jews'

From a page in 'An Age of Mediocrity: Memoirs
and Diaries 1963-1972' by Cyrus L.
Sulzberger (Macmillan)

What of the influence of Jewishness itself? What e impress does it have
on an American whose forebears first came to this continent three centuries
ago? What is it, anyway? Is it a religion? I am an atheist, devoutly if such is
possible. Ise it a nationality? I bow to no one as a better American. Is it a race?
The anthropologists unanimously say no.

In Israel, according to the law, a Jew is someone whose mother was
Jewish and who feels himself to be a Jew. But what of the mothers of converts
like Sammy Davis or Elizabeth Taylor?
Jewishness is a feeling—even for those who don't accept its theological
tenets. I have raised my children on the credo that they should consider them-
selves Jewish so long as that label can in any way be considered unpopular or
disadvantageous: that is all.
Old David Ben-Gurion, the patriarch of Israel whose own daughter-in-law
was a convert and therefore technically not Jewish according to the country's
rabbinical law, once defined Jewishness for me (July 24, 1968) : "The Greeks
were the most civilized people of the ancient world and, among them, the most
civilized were the Athenians. And the greatest Athenian, I think, was Plato.
Plato lived in the midst of the war with Sparta and he exhorted the Greek
tribes not to make war against each other. He said was was only permissible
against the non-Greeks, the barbarians. But Isaiah taught, in the Bible, that
there would be no war at all. This is the essence of the Jewish religion." (Odd,
coming from the Middle-Eastern Sparta!)
He continued: "Moses taught the Jews that they had to excel, to be the
best, in order to survive, a small people surrounded by mighty Egypt and
Babylon. And they learned this lesson; for otherwise how could they have
survived? . . . It is this moral factor that counts. This is the essence of the
question."
As mysterious to me as the unanswerable question of "what is a Jew?"
is the insidious tradition of anti-Semitism. That psychological malady dates back
at least twenty-six centuries. The burden of the wandering Jew has been to bring
anti-Semitism with him.
Humans, I have found, are really contemptible creatures of a far lower
order than, for example, beagles. They are addicted to inexplicable prejudice
against what appears to be different. So long as there are humans, there will
be Jews and anti-Jews; and there will be humans on this earth until another
Noah exports them to another planet in the face of another catastrophe.
The question for me has been complicated by the creation of Israel,
popular as an underdog but not as an overdog. As much of the world becomes
disenchanted with that doughty little state one can see this attitude reflected
in its views toward Jews as Jews, whatever their nationality. Right-wing anti-
Semitism is often endorsed by left-wing propaganda except perhaps in the
United States where, it has been written, "the American Jew is, in many ways,
the tolerated jester of a WASP society."

Furthermore, there must be adequate se-
curity guarantees or arrangements around
Sharm el-Sheikh and fixed demilitarized
zones in the Sinai area."
President Nixon in the exclusive inter-
view he gave Sulzberger March 8, 1971, on
the question of polls regarding Vietnam and
on the dangers stemming from Russian
challenges, said: "When Mrs. Meir, the
Israeli prime minister, visited me she un-
derstood right away when I said that if
America winds up the war in Vietnam in
failure and an image is developed that the
war was fought only by stupid scoundrels,
there would be a wave of isolationism. This
would embrace the U. S. role everywhere—
including the Middle East. Mrs. Meir .saw
the point immediately."
Sulzberger poses vital questions about
Secretary of State Kissinger. He had writ-
ten his memoirs before Kissinger had been
named to the highest appointive post in
the land, but Mr. Nixon's chief adviser was
already primarily in the limelight. Sulz-
berger asks:
"What was the effect upon U. S. foreign
policy produced by the fact that Henry
Kissinger experienced Hitler's oppression
during his youthful days as a Jew in Ger-
many? Did this fact in one or another way
influence his views on the Middle East or
on anti-Semitic Russia, or did it even in-
spire conjectures about new prejudice en.
gulfing the United States? Could the sad-
ness of his boyhood have stimulated in this
brilliant statesman a fondness for being
photographed in the company of society
beauties? And, if this was perhaps the case,
what induced in his predecessor, Walt
Rostow of the Johnson era, a preference for
being snapped in tennis togs with generals?"
On several occasions, Kissinger indi-
cated to Sulzberger his concern about a
growing anti-Semitism. At the time of
French President Pompidou's visit, he op-
posed protests by Jews. Sulzberger corn-

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

ments on Kissinger being "deeply disturbed
about the emotionalism of the American-
Jewish community during this Pompidou
visit" and states:
"He went on to describe the irrational ,
ity of the American Jews. Rockefeller, for
whom Henry worked prior to Nixon's elec-
tion, was enormously pro-Jewish, said Hen-
ry—`Genuinely and emotionally so, not in-
tellectually or politically or as a disguised
anti-Semite. And before the nominating con-
vention he received a letter from Jewish
organizations demanding his views on the

Sulzberger on Mediocrity

"Our age of mediocrity is marked not
only by an absence of outstanding men, but
also by an absence of vigorous new ideas.
Religion based on the concepts of either
God or man is foundering. And those who
invented God to explain man to himself,
as if proclaiming a shattering discovery,
now announce that God is dead."
"Without isms or credos to guide them,
men must look even more to inspirational
leadership, a characteristic that now seems
lacking. What, aside from inherited charac-
teristics like hunger, sex, or Ardrey's much-
debated 'territorial imperative,' is there to
guide mankind at this moment?"
"Although without question the period
I have covered is little marked by giants
and much featured by mediocrities, the
latter, when taken in Noah Webster's sense
`of a middle quality' will be seen to carry
with it political benefits. For the political
giants are produced by crises—or produce
them. The men of the 'moderate degree' of
excellence are tailored better to the nor-
mal if sometimes unexciting needs of
peace."
"Even journalism, my own trade, has
been marked by mediocrity's leveling in-
fluence . . Prejudice has replaced pride
as inspiration, emotion substitutes for in-
tellect, passion for honesty."

sale to Israel of fifty American Phantom
jets. Rockefeller replied that he wanted to
insure that Israel always had enough arms
to defend itself but simply wasn't in a po-
sition personally to say about the Phan-
toms. The result was that Rockefeller re-
ceived letters attacking him as unsympa-
thetic and saying the Jews would oppose
him.'
"Henry is worried about the repercus-
sions in the United States of organized
Jewish opinion. He foresees a wave of anti-
Semitism—`and I speak as a Jew'—and a
further rise in the extreme Right."
Kissinger had expressed concern a'
anti-Semitism on several occasions.
berger refers to him as "certainly the era's
outstanding roving envoy—this was a com-
ment made April 3, 1970. One of Sulz-
berger's discussions with Kissinger is re-
corded as follows:
"He said el Sadat of Egypt had shown
great skill in taking over the diplomatic
charting of the Middle East contest. His
appointment of Fawzi as prime minister
was most intelligent. There was a 'less
bad' opportunity to arrange an Israeli-Arab
settlement now than at any time since the
196'7 war. But the Russians simply had to
withdraw their military presence in Egypt.
"Henry was puzzled about how the first
step toward a settlement could be arranged.
I suggested that something should be done
about proposing the old (1906) frontier be-
tween Egypt and Ottoman Turkey as an
initial line of demarcation to which the
Israelis could withdraw from the Suez
Canal. Kissinger was fascinated by the
idea. He had never heard of that border
(God knows our policy is curiously fash-
ioned) and said he intended to look into it
immediately. I also asked if he had seen
my column proposing the creation of a
Moslem 'Vatican City' inside Jerusalem.
He had not seen it and was equally fasci-
nated. Right away he saw the point, en-
visioned how the Wailing Wall could be left
out of the Islamic enclave, and said that
in fact Jerusalem lent itself better to a
`Vatican City' than did Rome.
"Henry confessed he was worried about
the degree of anti-Semitism in this country.
I think he tends to exaggerate this and for
comprehensible human reasons. One must
remember that he arrived here as a young
refugee boy from Fuerth in Hitler's Ger-
many, and unquestionably has deep-seated
complexes. He was astonished at how many
people in the Establishment told him of
their own feelings, which were evidently
although unconsciously anti-Semitic. Be-
cause of his high White House position they
seem to forget that he is Jewish. One very
important man had most recently said to
him in confidence that he was convinced
there was a Jewish-communist plot. Henry
was appalled. Many of these Establishment
figures said that undoubtedly the United
States had more national interest in a hun-
dred million Arabs with their oil and ge-
ographical position than in less than three
million Jews in Israel.
Sulzberger's conversations with de-
Gaulle represent an important aspect of the
Middle East situation which is covered
very thoroughly in these memoirs. There
are references to the meetings deGaulle
had with Ben-Gurion, Levi Eshkol and
other Israelis and the pro-Arab position
that has been adopted by France it;
quest for Arab friendship.
Significant also are the visits of Sulz-
(Continued on Page 48)

Duke of Windsor on the Jews

It has been said that the late Duke of
Windsor, the abdicated British King Ed-
ward VIII, was anti-Semitic. In Paris, Nov.
20, 1969, Sulzberger met with the Duke and
Duchess and his memoirs contain the fol-
lowing:
"Windsor was very worried about the
moratorium demonstrations against Viet-
nam in the United States and compared
American unpopularity on the Vietnam war
with British unpopularity during the Boer
war. He went on with the curious state-
ment: 'You know we fought the Boer war
for the Jews—not the Jewish people but
the Jewish industrialists.' He said the dis-
like for Britain engendered by the Boer
war had put off for some years the achieve-
ment of the entente cordiale between Lon-
don and Paris."

