THE NEO-CONS, DETENTE AND ISRAEL, PART II

I wrote before that the neo-cons have been especially sensitive to Israel's needs and in Walter Isaacson's KISSINGER, there is more evidence of this senstivity in relation to detente. From pages 608-09:

More damaging than the conservative assault, which was to be expected, was the opposition to détente from former liberals, including those who had just recently been part of the peace movement. The neoconservatives, as these newcomers to the anticommunist crusade came to be called, were spearheaded by Jewish intellectuals and other strong supporters of Israel. They were partly motivated by the fear that America's weak-kneed anti-interventionist mood would combine with an eagerness to curry favor with Moscow and thus make the U.S. a less staunch defender of Israel. "There was a strong sense that Israel was doomed unless U.S. power in the world was maintained," said Richard Perle, one of the group's mandarins. "The Jewish-neoconservative connection sprang from that period of worries about détente and Israel."


These worries were heightened by the October 1973 war, during which Kissinger went to Moscow to arrange a cease-fire sooner than Israeli hard-liners wanted. Many viewed the heavy pressures he put on Israel, especially during the "reassessment" of American relations after the initial failure to reach a second Sinai accord in 1975, as part of his policy of détente. "Especially after the 1975 reassessment," Kissinger said, "assaults on détente stemmed from accusations that I was abandoning Israel." He also has a more personal explanation: "They could forgive me for being Jewish and secretary of state, but not for being Jewish, secretary of state, and marrying a tall, blond WASP."


Nixon, the staunch anticommunist, and Kissinger, the power-oriented defender of American credibility, found it astounding to be criticized as too soft on the Soviets by the likes of Norman Podhoretz and his contributors at Commentary magazine, many of whom had opposed the Vietnam war and major military programs. The intellectual stars of the neocons included Podhoretz; his wife, Midge Decter, who became director of the Committee for a Free World; Eugene Rostow, chairman of the Committee on the Present Danger; Irving Kristol, editor of The Public Interest; and Moynihan, who in 1975 became America's U.N. ambassador.'