Lyndon B. Johnson and the Politics of Arms Sales to Israel

Book excerpt: Lyndon B. Johnson and the Politics of Arms Sales to Israel seeks to reconstruct and elucidate the processes behind the decisions made by the Johnson Administration during the years 1965-68 to sell Israel M-48 tanks, A-4 Skyhawk planes and F-4 Phantom planes. This examination is based on a distinction between three factions which competed for influence within Washington's high-policy elite: the traditionalists (whose major representative was Secretary of State Dean Rusk); the pragmatists (whose most outspoken representative was Robert Komer of the National Security Council); and the domestically oriented policymakers (the central decision-maker who quintessentially exemplifies this category being President Johnson). This book is a sequel to: John F. Kennedy and the Politics of Arms Sales to Israel, which examined the first arms deal between the US and Israel.