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 election that 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]
From January 28 through February 4, 1972, the Security Council held its first meeting in
twenty years outside of New York City. The venue chosen was Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Bush made this the occasion for a trip through the Sudan, Kenya, Zambia, Zaire, Gabon,
Nigeria, Chad, and Botswana. Bush later told a House subcommittee hearing that this was
his second trip to Africa, with the preceding one having been a junket to Egypt and Libya
"in 1963 or 1964." [fn 26] During this trip Bush met with seven chiefs of state, including
President Mobutu of Zaire, Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia, President Tombalbaye of
Chad, and President Nimeiri of the Sudan.
At the meeting in Addis Ababa, Bush was blind-sided by a speech delivered by the
delegate of Panama, one of the rotating members of the Security Council. The Panamian
representative, Aquilino Boyd, vigorously attacked the US "occupation" of the Panana
Canal Zone. Bush was forced into parliamentary manuevering to avoid further discussion
of the Panamanian complaint, claiming that Boyd was out of order in that the Canal Zone
matter was not on the agenda, which was supposed to be oriented towards African
matters. This marks one of Bush's earliest public encounters with the Panama issue,
which was destined to become his bloody obsession during the first year of his
presidency. [fn 27]
Bush in Addis Ababa voted in favor of two resolutions on Namibia, one of which set up
the machinery under which the UN Secretary General was empowered to contact the
South African government about the status of the trusteeship territory usurped by
Pretoria. Bush thought that this first Namibia resolution had been "the most positive thing
that came out." Bush also voted for a further resolution on apartheid, and abstained on the
resolutions concerning Portuguese colionies and on Rhodesia. Bush's vote on the