An organized mail campaign against the confirmation of Henry Kissinger as Secretary of State–much of it overtly anti-Semitic–has been mounting here in recent days. The most concerted anti-Kissinger effort is being made by the Liberty Lobby, an extreme right-wing Washington-based organization that has been associated in the past with professional anti-Semites and hate mongers.
The Liberty Lobby has been sending out a flyer headed “Emergency P.S.” in which it urges the recipient to “contact your two Senators” to oppose confirmation of Dr. Kissinger and to “send a generous contribution to Liberty Lobby which will devote every radio program to Kissinger beginning Sept. 4” (last Tuesday). Liberty Lobby broadcasts on 81 radio stations in the U.S.
The flyer urges that Dr. Kissinger not be confirmed because “Plenty of native-born Americans would make a good Secretary of State” and that “he (Kissinger) is recognized as being pro-Soviet and pro-world government” and his appointment “is a slap in the face of the oil rich Arabs who know where his loyalties really lie.”
ANTI-SEMITISM IN EVIDENCE
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee conducting the Kissinger confirmation hearings disclosed Friday that it had received 339 communications, all but one of which opposed Dr. Kissinger’s nomination. About half of them attacked Kissinger as a Jew, a Zionist and an agent of international Jewish finance. Some disparaged his German accent.
A Committee staff official told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that the anti-Kissinger communications were about 50 percent from right-wing and 50 percent from liberal and left-wing sources. Some were from persons “obviously mentally disturbed” while some came from political science students who questioned Dr. Kissinger’s foreign policies and his appropriateness to be in the Cabinet because of Watergate implications, the official said.
Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Sen. J.William Fulbright said he would decide tomorrow whether the Committee would make public the communications it received on Dr. Kissinger’s nomination, some of which were acknowledged to be clearly anti-Semitic. He told the JTA that the Committee would determine at the same time whether private citizens would be granted the opportunity to testify at the confirmation hearings.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
