Jewish Lobby Loses a Big One

Carter shows new skill, Arabs play it cool

At the end, the battle over the Middle East plane deal turned into one of the most bruising Washington lobbying fights in years. Operating with growing confidence, the President and his top aides turned in their most skillful selling job on the Senate so far. The emerging Arab lobby displayed surprising sophistication and shrewdness. The Jewish lobby responded massively, but was undercut by confused signals from Jerusalem, as well as by some indecision in its own ranks, and it suffered a rare loss in Congress.

Carter repeatedly had such high officials as Secretary of State Cyrus Vance and Defense Secretary Harold Brown work on key Senators. He enlisted the help of former President Gerald Ford and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, as well as that of Nelson and David Rockefeller. In closed Senate hearings, State Department experts spread out maps with Saudi Arabia's Soviet-influenced neighbors inked in red--an appeal particularly effective with Republican Senators most worried about Russian moves in the Horn of Africa and in Southern Yemen. Deputy Secretary of State Warren Christopher's testimony on the Hill was crucial as he reported a dialogue held last month between Vance and Israel's Moshe Dayan. If the choice for Israel came down to getting the whole package killed, thereby losing its own new planes, or seeing Egypt and Saudi Arabia get aircraft too, which did it prefer? Recalled Christopher: "Dayan said they would rather have all the sales than to have none."

Even when Senate approval of the package seemed assured, Carter did not let up. In the final days before the vote, especially over the weekend, he worried about the potential impact of last-minute pro-Israel lobbying. The President once again telephoned at least two dozen Senators, including many Republicans, to plead that they stay with the package. In political terms the result was ironic. Despite Republican National Chairman Bill Brock's insistence that his party could use the issue to undermine the usual Jewish support of the Democratic Party, G.O.P. Senators voted 26 to 11 for Carter's position, whereas Democrats rejected the package, 33 to 28. Carter won with rare help from such conservatives as Barry Goldwater, Strom Thurmond, John Tower and Sam Hayakawa.

Saudi Arabia's successful drive was masterminded by Frederick Dutton, an experienced Washington hand who once lobbied on the Hill for Jack Kennedy.

Dutton, who has promoted Saudi causes since 1975, worked closely with the National Association of Arab Americans, an increasingly effective 2,000-member lobby. Both Dutton and his key associate, Public Relations Consultant Crawford Cook, tried to play down their influence. Said Cook: "I'm certain that the vote would not have gone the way it did had the Administration not been as strong on this issue as it was."

Yet the appearance in Washington of sleek limousines rolling away from the city's Madison Hotel to carry Saudi Arabian princes and high officials to meetings with Senators had an impact. American-educated Saudi Prince Turki attended a lunch given by South Dakota's pro-Arab James Abourezk for 22 other Senators. Individually, Turki and another member of the Saudi royal family, Prince Bandar, met with other Senators. Also from Riyadh came Ghazi Algosaibi, Minister of Industry and Power, and Sulaiman As-Salim, Minister of Commerce. All were low-key but sophisticated salesmen who, in excellent English, made a strong case that their nation needed the planes for defensive purposes. Wisely, they feigned little interest in how many aircraft the U.S. might sell to Israel, saying that was none of their business. Just as shrewdly, they never mentioned oil. The significance of this open Saudi lobbying, said Dutton, was that "Senators no longer feel that they have to meet Arabs in the back room."

The Saudi drive also included full-page ads in U.S. newspapers, glossy multipage displays in magazines and 15-page memos sent to all Senators to explain just why Saudi Arabia wanted the F-15s. On the day of the vote Cook got in touch with some 200 influential businessmen and asked them to telephone Senators they thought might still be undecided.

Yet it was the Jewish lobby that, as always when an Israeli position seems threatened, churned out a huge avalanche of letters, telegrams, telephone calls and personal pleas. During an annual meeting of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the veteran lobbying group for all Jewish organizations, some 600 members fanned out in Washington to besiege members of Congress on the plane package. Generally, their pitches were not the least bit subtle; the Senators' votes would be "a litmus test" of whether they deserved continued Jewish support. "It was very personal lobbying, terribly intense," observed one pro-Administration lobbyist trying to compete with the Jewish campaign.

As usual, much of the outpouring of Jewish sentiment was spontaneous. Some was organized at local levels by rabbis and other Jewish community leaders. B'nai B'rith and the American Jewish Committee, as well as other national organizations, promoted the cause. In Washington, some 20 young men and women in the offices of AIPAC revved up their mimeograph machines to dispatch detailed "fact sheets" to all Senators. The group's four registered lobbyists, headed by Morris J. Amitay, 41, relentlessly roamed the Hill.

But if Jewish organizations responded almost as one to oppose the package, many individual Jews were less certain. Some thought Israeli Premier Menachem Begin deserved to be pressured more by the U.S., that Egyptian President Anwar Sadat's mission to Jerusalem rated a reward, that moderate Arabs like the Saudis could help achieve peace. More significantly, however, they were confused by the official Israeli position on the package. Neither Jerusalem nor the Israeli embassy in Washington flatly urged that the package be killed if it meant that Israel could not get the planes it wanted--until just a few days before the debate. "There wasn't a coherent, unified position, and that made it hard to sell," complained one lobbyist.

As the Administration, the Arabs and the Jews all pushed their pleas on individual Senators, the legislators suffered considerable agony. Some examples:

ABE RIBICOFF. Jewish himself and long a key supporter of Israel, the Connecticut Democrat took a surprising early stand in favor of the plane deal. He publicly assailed the Jewish lobby as "self-appointed spokesmen ... who do a great disservice to the U.S., to Israel and to the Jewish community," and privately criticized AIPAC'S director, Amitay, who was once his assistant. Stunned Jewish leaders from Hartford set up a lengthy meeting with the Senator. National Jewish leaders confronted him in Washington, Connecticut Jews in Hartford. The exchanges were acrimonious. Ribicoff insisted that he would not budge "even if I have to stand alone." Rabbis barraged him with calls and visits. Influential Jews told him: "I'll never vote for you again." His position had great influence over other pro-package Senators, who reasoned that if Ribicoff could oppose his fellow Jews, they too could be defended against Jewish criticism. During debate behind closed Senate doors, Ribicoff received an ovation for his courage. After the vote, several Senators who voted against the package praised him privately. Said one: "I admire you--and I'm ashamed of what I did."

CHARLES MATHIAS. The Maryland Republican has large Jewish constituencies in Baltimore and in Montgomery County, near Washington. But, determined to act independently, he sought advice on the plane deal from both Kissinger and Christopher. As he leaned toward approval of the sales, he talked to such all-out opponents as Amitay and Jerold Hoffberger, owner of the Baltimore Orioles. On a weekend trip to California, Mathias was told by a former president of the Los Angeles Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith: "My agency is pulling all the stops out, but I disagree; I think you're taking the right course." Maryland Jews sent him telegrams pleading that he "come home" and vote with them against the package. He did come home--but he voted for it.

JOHN CHAFEE. The Rhode Island Republican held a four-hour meeting with Jewish leaders in Providence and heard out all the anti-package arguments. He was barraged with mail overwhelmingly against the deal. He assigned an assistant to sit through all of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's hearings on the issue, not being a member himself. On the weekend he secluded himself in his rustic cabin at Matunuck, R.I., jotting down the pros and cons on a legal pad. He was impressed by the fact that his closest friend in the Senate, Republican Charles Percy, favored the sales. He decided to go with Percy. Back in Washington on Monday, he learned that the President had telephoned him three times, David and Nelson Rockefeller had called. Chafee returned the calls, said there was no need to talk, he would vote with Carter.

JOHN DANFORTH. The Missouri Republican agonized over his vote up to the moment he cast it. Jewish friends in his home state argued repeatedly that if he were to support the package, he would betray their trust. But Carter, Vance, Brown, the Rockefeller brothers and even Jerry Ford, all called him to argue that the sales would serve the national interest. Danforth was also reminded by Missouri businessmen that the 60 F-15s wanted by Saudi Arabia would mean more jobs for the manufacturer, St. Louis-based McDonnell Douglas, already the largest (30,000) private employer in the state. Two hours before the balloting, Danforth was undecided. Finally, he cast his vote for the package. "It was the most difficult decision I have made in the Senate," he said.

GARY HART. The Colorado Democrat too was unable to make up his mind until just an hour before the roll was called. Prominent Jewish leaders "from Los Angeles to Boston" whom he met while managing George McGovern's 1972 presidential campaign had besieged him. He received a telephoned plea from Vance. Yet he had been "very impressed" by the pleas of the Saudi princes. While Hart was on his way to the Senate floor, New Republic Editor Marty Peretz made an emotional final-hour anti-sales pitch to him. Vice President Walter Mondale took him aside for a counterplea. Finally, Hart voted against the Administration. His reason: he is a U.S. adviser for a special United Nations session on disarmament. Said he: "It would have been ironic, if not untenable, to sell planes and participate in a disarmament conference."

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