The position of Elliott Abrams, Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs and one of the most outspoken Jewish neo-conservatives in the Reagan Administration, appeared tenuous Thursday after his two days of testimony before the Senate-House Iran Contra Committee this week.
However, Abrams, who admitted he had misled Congress last year about the Administration’s aid to the Contras, indicated at the conclusion of his testimony Wednesday that he plans to remain in his job.
Secretary of State George Shultz “seems to be pretty satisfied with the job I’ve done for him,” he told the committee. “That makes me very happy and very proud.”
This assessment was seconded later by State Department spokesman Charles Redman, who said Shultz “thinks Secretary Abrams is doing a sensational job, and he has full and total confidence in him.”
But several members of the committee, including some who praised Abrams, indicated that the Administration may have difficulty in getting approval for continued funds for the Contras if Abrams is still at the State Department when the Administration makes its request in September.
The 39-year-old Abrams is the son-in-law of Norman Podhoretz, editor of Commentary, the magazine published by the American Jewish Committee, that is considered the intellectual voice of the neo-conservative movement.
A former aide to the late Sen. Henry Jackson (D. Wash.) and Sen. Daniel Moynihan (D. NY), Abrams campaigned for President Reagan in 1980, speaking largely before Jewish organizations.
When Reagan took office in 1981, Abrams became Assistant Secretary of State for International Organizations. But when Reagan’s first choice for Assistant Secretary for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs, Ernest Lefever, could not get Senate approval, Abrams was named to that job.
In that post, he frequently appeared before Jewish organizations, particularly on the issue of Soviet Jewry. In the 1984 presidential campaign, Abrams appeared regularly before Jewish audiences on Reagan’s behalf.
Abrams moved over to the Inter-American Affairs Department in 1985.
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.
