Bush Names Advisory Committee on Middle East Affairs

Vice President George Bush has named a 27-member committee to advise him on the Middle East for his presidential campaign against the Democratic nominee.

The committee is headed by Gordon Zacks, a leading Jewish Republican, and Richard Fairbanks, a former assistant secretary of state.

“This committee will be invaluable in helping the campaign address the full range of challenges and opportunities that our nation faces in the Middle East,” Bush said in a statement announcing the formation of the committee.

It will make recommendations to the Republican Platform Committee and will assist Bush in the presidential campaign on debates and position papers.

Zacks, an Ohio businessman active in the Jewish community, has long been close to Bush and has frequently introduced him when the vice president spoke before national Jewish organizations.

The committee includes Marshall Breger, a former special assistant to President Reagan for liaison with the Jewish community, and now chairman of the Administrative Conference of the United States.

Other former government officials on the committee include Lawrence Eagleburger, a former undersecretary of state in the Reagan administration, and now president of Kissinger Associates; Joseph Sisco, a former undersecretary of state in the Nixon and Ford administrations; Charles Fairbanks, a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Relations, who was a deputy assistant secretary of state; and Allan Keyes and William Schneider, both former assistant secretaries of state.

Others on the committee include Leonard Garment, Allan Gerson, Geoffrey Kemp, Joyce Starr, Harry Rowan, and M. Graeme Bannerman.

Also, Amos Perlmutter, Daniel Pipes, Matthew Freedman, Frank Fukuyama, Lawrence Goldmuntz, Michael Halbouty, Paul Jureidini, Phyliss Kaminsky, James Phillips, Harvey Sichermnan, Jed Snyder, and Barry Zorithian.