Support Any Friend

Flanked by the cataclysms of the 1956 Suez War and the 1967 Six Day War, the Kennedy administration is often overlooked by students of the Arab-Israeli conflict. But at the height of the Cold War, JFK set key precedents that continue to shape America's encounter with the Middle East to this day. In Support Any Friend, Warren Bass takes readers inside the corridors of power to show how Kennedy's New Frontiersmen grappled with formidable, stubborn leaders in Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and elsewhere. From Oval Office meetings to secret diplomatic missions to Cairo and Tel Aviv, Bass provides new insights into the dramatic events shaking the Middle East in the early 1960s. He explains why the fiery Nasser ultimately spurned Washington's overtures and stumbled into an unwinnable war that he called "my Vietnam." He shows how Israeli diplomats, including a young Shimon Peres, persuaded the Kennedy administration to start arming the Jewish state through the groundbreaking 1962 decision to sell Israel Hawk missiles. And he describes the 1963 showdown in which JFK himself went eyeball to eyeball with Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion over Israel's secret Dimona nuclear reactor. - Jacket flap.