Egyptian Foreign Minister and the between Bush and the Israeli Foreign Minister. These
conversations were part of secret State Department cables that were leaked to the columnist JackAnderson, who published their contents.
The first conversation is beyween Bush and Mahmoud Riad, the Foreign Miniser oif Egypt.
"Ambassador Bush...sought out Formin Riad in UN Indonesian Lounge to discuss Egytpian draft
res re Middle East...Noting that Egyptian draft res appeared from initial reading to be generallysatisfactory,, Bush stated that major stumbling block for USG [ie, the Nixon regime] was placing of (^)
language re Jarring mission in operative paragraph section...Bush asked if Riad willing to consider
removal of this language from operative section to preamble."
What Bush was clearly trying to do was to weaken the references to Jarring, who was identifiedwith the idea that the Israelis must quit the occupied territories in order to make peace possible. The (^)
cable continues:
"Riad replied in negative but not before he stressed that for Egyptians inclusion of this language in
operative section not repeat not merely semantic exercise, on contrary, Egypt convinced that Israeltrying to get out of giving favorable reply to Jarring and that only way to force Israel is by means of (^)
explicit UN resolution."
Bush responded to this by making several proposal for minor changes, but then submitted these to
Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban. A cable marked "Eyes Only-Specat Exclusive" describes theBush-Eban conversation: "Bush...had meeting the Formin Abba Eban this afternoon...Eban said
Israel could not repeat not accept USG proposal...He noted ...that Jarring has not been too helpful
and characterized him as 'negativistic individual.' On the other hand he opined that if Jarring would
would make move toward Israel 'We'll see what we can do to help him.'" At another meeting
between Eban and Bush, Eban "observed...that on political grounds[sic] to Jarring but appreciated that parliamentary reasons may dictate need for some thing. Both Israel not have any reference
Eban and Tekoah summed up that from Israel point of view, best course would be to limit
resolution language to 'complimentary reference to Jarring.'"
What all these machinations finally yielded was a resolution that passed with the United Statesabstaining and Israel opposed. At the same time, the US promised Israel a continuing supply of (^)
Phantom jets, and there was war in the Middle East before the year was out, just as Kissinger had
planned.
Bush himself has always been reluctant about flaunting his own impeccable Zionist credentials,probably because of his desire to maintain close ties to the money and power centers of the Arab (^)
world. In his campaign autobiography, Bush seeks repeatedly to profile himself as a target of the
extremists of the Jewish Defense League. On one occasion, Bush recounts, he was accosted at the
entrance to the US mission to the United Nations by Rabbi Meir Kahane, the leader of the JDL.
"Why won't you talk to me? All I want is a dialogue," said Kahane, according to Bush's account.Bush says he refused to stop, but told Kahane in passing: "Because I've seen your idea of a
dialogue-those shots fired into the Soviet Embassy, and I don't condone your group's violence any
more than violence directed at Jews by Arab terrorists," which was a marvel of even-handed
rhetoric in full career. Another Bush anecdote of unconfirmed veracity is attributed by Fitzhugh
Green to New York East Side restauranteur Walter J. Ganzi, who recounted after the 1988 electionthat Bush had pacified and dispersed a menacing crowd of several thousand angry JDL
demonstrators one day by making an impromptu speech suffused with leadership charisma. Bush's
admirers claim that he was responsible for Nixon's creation of a new police force, the Executive
Protective Service, which is assigned to guard foreign officials visiting the US. [fn 25]