FOCUS
Los Angeles — The ponder-
ous-sounding Center for
Foreign Policy Options con-
sists of five sober, respectable
men, without staff or secre-
tary, and its existence was
practically unknown until
several weeks ago.
Yet for the past 18 months,
walking a delicate interna-
tional tightrope stretching
from Los Angeles to Wash-
ington, Jerusalem and Johan-
nesburg, the center has been
a key player in a secretive
project of considerable pro-
mise for bettering relations
between Israel and black
Africa and between the
Jewish and black com-
munities in the United States.
1. 13 American readers, the
first hint of what the five men
had been up to came on March
30 in a front-page story in the
Los Angeles Times from its
Jerusalem correspondent. It
reported the arrival of 20
black leaders from South
Africa for a month of leader-
ship training at Israel's Afro-
Asian Institute, run by the
Histadrut labor federation.
Buried deep within the ar-
ticle was a single, vague
reference to the "Los Angeles-
based Center for Foreign Pol-
icy Options, described as a
Jewish think tank."
With the black leaders safe-
ly in Israel and the world
press rapidly picking up on
the story, the center has shed
its self-imposed anonymity
and for the first time has
revealed details of the tense,
complex and at times drama-
tic operation.
What the center lacks (in-
tentionally) in numbers it
makes up with a rare com-
bination of political savvy, in-
fluential contacts, financial
connections and academic
scholarship.
The group's founder is Ed-
ward Sanders, who served as
President Jimmy Carter's
senior advisor on Middle
Eastern and Jewish affairs.
He returned from his stint in
Washington to Los Angeles
with an uneasy sense that the
American Jewish community
lacked a non-partisan body
that could explore long-range
strategic options in the way
that Washington think tanks
serve Democratic and Repub-
lican presidents.
Four years ago, he met over
lunch with a handful of simi-
larly minded Los Angeles
Jewish leaders to form a
center that would be "small,
nimble, unburdened by over-
head and hierarchy and able
to move quickly."
Besides Sanders, the cen-
ter's entire roster of officers,
operatives and staff consists
of: Osias G. Goren, who
headed the Jewish wing of
the Reagan election cam-
paigns in 1980 and 1984, cur-
rently chairman of the center:
Maxwell E. Greenberg, hon-
orary chairman of the Anti-
Defamation League, B'nai
B'rith; Irwin S. Field, chair-
man of the United Israel Ap-
peal; and Professor Steven L.
Spiegel of the University of
California, Los Angeles
(UCLA), one of the leading
authorities on U.S. policy in
the Middle East and the
group's research director.
Both Sanders and Goren
are past presidents of the
L.A. Jewish Federation Coun-
cil.
The genesis of the South
African project in the au-
tumn of 1984 was highly in-
auspicious. Bishop Desmond
11.itu was in Los Angeles, just
before winning the Nobel
Peace Prize, and a visitor in
the home of State Assembly-
man 'Ibm Hayden and his
wife, actress Jane Fonda.
Hayden had invited a small
group of local black and
Jewish leaders to meet
and during the conversation
the topic • of Israel came up.
'Rau was outspokenly critical
of Israel's relationship with
the white government in Pre-
toria; his indictment was
challenged by some of the
Jewish participants, and the
evening ended in a sharp con-
frontation between 'Rau and
attorney Marshall Grossman.
"Both 'Ibm and Jane were
deeply disturbed," recalls
Hayden's political director,
Havi Scheindlin, and the next
morning the assemblyman
phoned Professor Spiegel to
discuss what could be done to
prevent an irreparable breach
between Israel and South
Africa's blacks.
Spiegel left for Israel and
talked extensively with gov-
ernment, labor and academic
leaders and, he says, found
Activist Think. Tank
A tiny Jewish policy study center, based in Los Angeles, tackles
big problems; in this case, the rift between black South Africans
and the Jewish community.
TOM TUGEND
Special to The Jewish News
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