Photo by Danie l Rose n

PROFILE

Raymond Tanter:
"Power fascinates
me."

THE Professor
"THE Helm

ELIZABETH APPLEBAUM

Assistant Editor

W

henever the school
bullies chased him,
Raymond Tanter
ran for safety to the
storefront libraries that
dotted the west side of
Chicago. There, he would
read the classics — Moby
Dick and Huckleberry Finn
were favorites — and shake
his finger at the big boys
when they passed by.
Nobody pushes Raymond
Tanter around anymore. The
author of a new book, Who's
at the Helm: Lessons of Leb-
anon, Dr. Tanter has served
with the National Security
Council and as personal
representative for the secre-
tary of defense. Confident
and outspoken, the Univer-
sity of Michigan political
science professor describes
himself as a member of the

power elite. As such, he has
been part of the inner circle
of political decision-making
including many that af-
fect Israel.
Raymond Tanter was rais-
ed in a Chicago neighbor-
hood of blacks, Jews and
Italians. He describes his
home as "very stable, and
my father was married to
the same woman all his life.
I guess that seems a little
quaint now." Raymond's
first job was delivering the
Yiddish daily, The Forward.
His father worked for the
post office; his grandfather
served at the Cook County
morgue, where he often saw
the bullet-riddled bodies of
Chicago gangsters.
The family had little
money saved when Raymond
wanted to go to college, so he
took jobs at the post office
and as a social worker with
the county hospital. He went
to school and worked full-

Author and U-M
instructor
Raymond Tanter
dissects the
inner workings
of American,
Israel and Arab
political
decision-making.

time, earning a bachelor's
degree in six years. Ray-
mond also saved enough
money to put his sister
through college.
He never had small
dreams. As a college stu-
dent, Raymond Tanter al-
ready had "set my sights on
getting to the White House."
His passion was power.
"Power fascinates me,"
Dr. Tanter said. "It's that
ability to make a differ-
ence."
After receiving a Ph.D. in
political science from In-
diana University, Dr. Tanter
in 1964 moved to Evanston,
Ill., where he took a teaching
position at Northwestern
University. It was the
beginning of the end of his
life as a Democrat.
Following in his parents'
footsteps, Dr. Tanter was in
his younger days "a Hubert
Humphrey Democrat," he
said. But in Evanston he met

up with a flock of moderate
Republicans with whom "I
felt very comfortable."
Today, he calls himself the
only Republican at U-M, but
he says he's learned to live
with it. "Some of my best
friends are Democrats," he
said.
During the Vietnam War,
Dr. Tanter lectured on the
war while serving as
Fulbright professor at the
University of Amsterdam.
There, a trip to the mailbox
was a trip to the unknown.
Dr. Tanter became a fre-
quent visitor to the police
station when he began re-
ceiving letter bombs.
"Nobody would open them
except this old Jewish man,"
he said.
The two became friends,
and Dr. Tanter became in-
creasingly interested in
Israel. In 1972, he began
teaching what would be his
first of many spring-summer

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

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