Senator Jacob K. Javits, Republican, who publicly declared his support of President Johnson’s policy on Vietnam and said that he did not believe that the President had made statements attributed to him by a delegation of the Jewish War Veterans who visited the White House, indicated today that he is seeking an admission or denial from the President as to whether he equated U.S. aid to Israel with support from American Jewry for his Vietnam policy.
The New York Jewish senator made his statement in the wake of the reassurance given by Ambassador Arthur J. Goldberg, one of President Johnson’s closest advisors, to leaders of the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations last Tuesday, at an informal conference at his Waldorf Towers apartment, emphasizing that the Johnson Administration was not seeking to create any link between the U.S. policy on Vietnam and U.S. aid to Israel.
(The New York Times, in an editorial today, saying that “Jews are no more capable of arriving at a monolithic community position on Vietnam than are Christians or agnostics” and that there is no reason why they should, strongly criticized Ambassador Goldberg for becoming an intermediary of the Administration with Jewish groups. Pointing out that other Presidents also had similar intermediaries, the Times said: “The existence of such an intermediary is nonetheless thoroughly distasteful and unwarranted. No American citizens need a special emissary from their own government, much less anyone who might, on that account, be presumed to be a special-interest representative for them inside government. Ambassador Goldberg’s participation in this private conference was an unfortunate diversion from the vitally important work he is doing at the United Nations.”)
Declaring that he intends “to pursue” his efforts to get President Johnson’s view on the statements attributed to him, Sen. Javits explained he would not ask him, nor expect him to deal with this frontally, by making some statement that he did or didn’t say it.
“But I would hope he would, in his own way, and in his own time, indicate that he thinks Americans are Americans, and not people of one faith or another. Jews should not be held hostage for general American policy,” he said.
Persistent reports about the President saying American Jews should support him if they expect continued U.S. support for Israel “had best be set to rest,” Javits continued.
“I do not believe there is anything to them intrinsically. I do not believe the President feels that way. He has every right to be irritated and frustrated. The President is human, just as all of us. But this is not characteristic of the President generally. He had great backing from people of the Jewish faith. Look at me. I represent the people of the State of New York; I am Jewish, and I support the President,” he declared.
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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.
