Frank Church: A MOMENT Report
FRANK CHURCH A MOMENT REPORT Idaho is an unlikely setting for one of the most important political contests of the 1980 elections, but that is where Frank Church is from, and it is the 300,000 or so...
...But, as a United States Senator, I must look first to the national interests of my own country in determining what American policy should be...
...Rather than risking a backlash to more heavy-handed intervention, they may prefer to let nature—in the form of the growth of right-wing isolationism—take its course...
...He has Senator Church's record on the Middle East is clear, his views well-known...
...If the dispute between Israel and her Arab neighbors were settled tomorrow in conformity with Arab demands, that would have no discernable effect upon either the prices or supply of OPEC oil to the Western world...
...The Anyone But Church Political Action Committee is already criticizing Church for his dependence on out-of-state funds, but by the time the Republicans have their nominee, it is likely that the carpet-bagging issue will prove a stand-off between the two...
...But there are curious and disconcerting connections between Tripoli and Boise: Not long ago, Libya sent a seven-member trade delegation to Idaho, to talk about the prospect of trading Idaho wheat for Libyan oil—and to talk about the problems Frank Church was causing Libya by his adamant opposition to the C-130 license...
...But if you want to be endorsed by the voters of Idaho— and Church does—you don't monkey around with the right of people to own guns—and Church doesn't...
...When other Arab leaders are prepared to follow Sadat's example, peace will come to the Middle East...
...oil imports come from Libya . . . The farmers in Idaho would like to open agricultural exports to Libya...
...Come election day, next November, the hands that pull the levers will be the hand of Idaho citizens...
...But the expansion of settlements on the West Bank and the bombing of southern Lebanon constitute the principal causes for the erosion...
...The C-130 is a cargo plane with great versatility...
...it has a 5,000 mile range and is especially useful for paratroop drops...
...Symms' record—he has served in Congress since 1973— makes it clear that his support for Arab interests is a matter of principle, not of convenience...
...He has told William Safire that he now opposes the arms sale, and that he will pay no mind to Libyan economic influence...
...If so, why...
...It was Egypt that threw the Communists out of its government, and Saudi Arabia was our ally in opposing entrance of Red China into the United Nations...
...It is capable of being equipped with a formidable array of weapons...
...it is not the politics of Idaho that matter to them, but national and international affairs...
...FRANK CHURCH A MOMENT REPORT Idaho is an unlikely setting for one of the most important political contests of the 1980 elections, but that is where Frank Church is from, and it is the 300,000 or so voters of Idaho that Mr...
...C: The oil-Israel connection is fraudulent...
...As to the settlements, it may simply not be possible to explain the Israeli position to the satisfaction of the American people...
...Church must convince to return him for a fifth term in the United States Senate...
...For in terms of reliable support, Israel likely has no closer friend and no more enthusiastic advocate in the United States Senate than Frank Church...
...And so far, the United States government has refused to provide the export license needed for the delivery of the planes to the Libyans...
...because the Israelis have shown the courage to fight against great odds in order to survive...
...William Fulbright needed to keep the segregationists back in Arkansas happy all the while he was doing his internationalist thing as Chairman...
...Symms is a thoroughly undistinguished (but reasonably popular) arch-conservative...
...It is hard to imagine that the voters of Idaho will make their choice on the basis of differences between the candidates on matters so removed from their direct interest...
...In his letter of invitation to the off-the-record meeting, Symms was careful to note that "40 percent of Libya's oil exports come to the U.S., and between 10 and 11 percent of the U.S...
...But Symms' general disposition regarding the Middle East does not inspire much confidence in his ability to stay clear of entanglement with Arab interests...
...The Libyan connection is slippery...
...And given Libyan oil and Libyan threats to withhold that oil unless the C-130s are dispatched, Libya may not be so unlikely after all...
...It has both offensive and defensive missiles galore...
...The Senate campaign in Idaho this year will almost surely involve the expenditure of two million dollars— this in a battle for the 300-325,000 votes that will be cast in the election...
...The true path to peace involves acceptance of the principles embodied in the Camp David accords...
...And the other is a Congressman named Symms...
...he opposed the Export Administration Act which included anti-boycott provisions...
...He is in trouble because in 1980, Frank Church is a leading target of a vigorous—and vicious—campaign by a coalition of right-wing forces to unseat him...
...Still, the United States not infrequently supplies arms to very unlikely governments...
...For Church's opponent, it will come from the National Conservative Political Action Committee, from the Young Americans for Freedom, the Anti-Abortion Life Amendment Political Action Committee, the Liberty Lobby, the Fund for a Conservative Majority and the Committee to Defeat Union Bosses...
...As to the United States, this is what Qadaffi had to say: "We really don't know who rules America—the Americans or the Zionists...
...These moral considerations have much more to do with galvanizing public support for Israel in the United States than any geo-political calculation...
...In general, the best way to counter the erosion is to dispel the notion that Israel has become an obstacle to peace in the Middle East...
...M: Has there been an erosion of support for Israel lately...
...But he is in trouble...
...he does not project the warmth or the wit that made Golda Meir such a lovable figure...
...In short, Symms supports an end to the American commitment to Israel...
...Arch" here means, for example, that Symms opposes all income taxes, that he has a 98 percent rating from the American Conservative Union and a 99 percent rating from the Americans for Constitutional Action (which opposes "the current massive movement of our Nation into socialism and a regimented society...
...The price would continue to be set at as high a level as the market can bear, while the same tight rein would be held on supply, in order to sustain the price...
...It is to those who share his views on the Middle East and who are grateful for his position that Church will be turning, in the months ahead, for help...
...Libya has indicated its interest in opening a trade mission in'Boise...
...There is no hard evidence of direct Libyan intervention in the Idaho senatorial campaign...
...and because of the perception that Israel is a sanctuary for persecuted Jews who have fled there from many other lands...
...And convincing Frank Church seems quite plainly out of the question, given Church's track record of sobriety on Middle East issues...
...This is how a cartel operates, and OPEC is the world's most successful cartel...
...Part of it has come about because Prime Minister Begin lacks the common touch...
...So it comes down to defeating Church, on the assumption that the next Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee will get the message...
...Convince him—or see that he is defeated...
...Church is today among the half-dozen best known Senators in the country...
...It is hardly necessary—or so one might think—to justify America's refusal to add to Libya's military capability...
...he opposed the interim agreements between Egypt and Israel, and he opposed the administration's aid package designed to implement the Israel-Egypt peace treaty...
...we find the same terrorist friends of Israel and their imperialist friends in America accusing the Palestine liberation movement and its heroic fighters of being terrorists . . . We fully support the PLO which the Americans abuse as a terrorist movement...
...And, quite apart from its military orientation and capability, Libya remains the principal defender and abettor of international terrorism in the world today...
...Most alarming, Congressman Steve Symms, who is Church's most likely Republican opponent in the upcoming election, has emerged as a middleman between Libya and his constituents...
...So, too, the funds for the Church campaign will come mostly from private citizens across the country who believe that there are some United States Senators whose positions and whose records make their re-election a matter of national interest—and that Frank Church is assuredly one of that number...
...Convincing the President, William Safire has suggested, is what is behind the Libyan flirtation with Billy Carter...
...As for my personal position, I am attracted to Israel for the same reasons that appeal to most other Americans...
...Is there such a linkage in fact...
...The fraud here must be exposed...
...However, that is not the principal cause for the popular support of Israel among the citizens of the United States...
...opposed foreign aid in general...
...All the Libyans have to do in order to reverse the current American policy is to convince the President of the United States, who can instruct the State Department to grant the needed license, or, as they see it, convince Frank Church, whose support for the license would be a powerful step forward...
...That farcical relationship is likely dismissed by most Americans with an indulgent guffaw, and by the President with an embarrassed shrug...
...And Church is opposed by Americans for Life, which calls him a "baby killer" who thinks "it's perfectly OK to slaughter unborn infants by abortion...
...Libya has some two thousand Soviet tanks, at least 50 MIG 23s, and an unspecified number of MIG 25s...
...And, in addition to having led one mission of Idaho notables to Libya, Symms' role as a middleman is attested by his sponsorship last February of a meeting for his Congressional colleagues with Ahmed El-Shahati, head of the Foreign Liaison Office of the Libyan Congress...
...Time after time, he has been a staunch supporter of Israel and of America's peace-making initiatives...
...The Libyans . . . do not want to be pushed into cooperating with the Eastern Bloc, but they have not been able to gain access to our markets...
...It has far more military equipment, Soviet-supplied, than its army can possibly absorb...
...So, too, one assumes that it is the delicacies of constituency relations that led Church to insist recently that a molehill of Russians in Cuba was in fact a mountain that-required urgent American action...
...Or that Church "single handedly destroyed America's intelligence gathering capacity with his witch hunt against the CIA and FBI...
...Herewith, some excerpts from that conversation: M: How would you explain the "special relationship" between Israel and the U.S...
...The importance of having a strong, internally cohesive and dependable friend in this volatile and highly unstable part of the world should be obvious to all...
...The American people, by and large, admire Israel because this small country is an oasis of freedom in a vast desert of despotism...
...Asked about the possibility that his exaggeration of the danger might have been politically motivated, Church replies with a half-hearted condemnation of "knee-jerk liberal reaction...
...One is the government of Libya...
...No, not your run-of-the-mill conservative opposition, but a genuine reversion to political ugliness that is centered in the far West and that threatens to become an increasingly powerful force in other parts of the country in the next decade— unless it is nipped in its bitter bud this time out...
...technicians in the Sinai...
...when other Arab governments accept those principles, we will be on the road to peace...
...The Middle East issue may not emerge as a major element in the Church campaign, even if it is Symms who opposes Church...
...But between now and then, it will be the efforts of others—Israel's supporters, Israel's enemies, the forces of reaction, the forces of moderation, that will help determine which lever gets pulled...
...Indeed, when Qadaffi was interviewed in the Blitz (an Indian publication) of July 21, 1979, he made his views on terrorism very clear: Qadaffi opposed the "use of the expression 'terrorism' by the world's worst terrorists, the Zionist terror and blackmail responsible for the occupation of Arab Palestine FRANK CHURCH A MOMENT REPORT...
...Or that Church "voted against Idaho when he voted to give away our Panama Canal" and "when he supported the bail-out of New York City and its labor unions, bureaucrats and politicians...
...By their enemies shalt thou know them: Church is opposed by the Anyone But Church Political Action Committee, whose political instincts can be judged by its accusation that Church has "betrayed Nationalist China," voting instead for "Red China and the Carter Administration...
...Whether that interest will lead the Libyans to do anything more than continue to drop not-so-subtle hints about the economic benefits that Idaho might enjoy were Church to be defeated remains to be seen...
...Clearly, Frank Church needs a few good conservative issues to offset his support for Salt II, his skepticism of the military, his views on abortion— in short, his moderate-to-liberal record...
...Some issues, and much money...
...Already, that course has apparently forced Church to go out of his way to placate the conservatives in his home state...
...These Arab nations have been friendly to American people and American business in the past, and we should make every effort to preserve good relations with them...
...Such intervention is, of course, illegal...
...C: I believe that the strategic importance of Israel at the 'crossroads of the world' is the primary link between the American commitment to the survival of Israel and American interests in the Middle East...
...Idaho's 300,000 voters, it turns out, will be making a decision for the entire nation in 1980, and the question will not be where the campaign dollars are collected, but whether the private citizens who think it important that Church be returned to the Senate can, through their efforts, neutralize the impact of the political action committees that desperately want to see Church defeated...
...But Church's most interesting opposition comes from two other sources...
...Here is what is known: Some years ago, Libya purchased five C-130 cargo planes and two Boeing 727 aircraft...
...But Americans should be reminded constantly that the tragic cycle of violence which has led to the bombing started with PLO terrorist attacks against Israel...
...As chairman of something called "Taxpayers for Peace," he has lobbied actively and constantly against American involvement in the Middle East...
...he opposed the resolution stationing U.S...
...next to potatoes, he is surely Idaho's most recognizable export...
...C: I think there has been some erosion...
...Symms, stung by the backlash when his actions were reported in the media, has now backed away from his obvious efforts on behalf of the Libyans...
...Church's sometimes awkward position is remarkably similar to that of the previous FRC Chairman...
...But in the background, and in the fund-raising effort, Church's record on the Middle East promises to be a very important issue indeed...
...What can be done about it...
...One presumes, for example, that a man of such generally liberal disposition as Church privately supports gun control legislation...
...It bears repeating, again and again, that when Sadat explicitly recognized Israel's right to exist, and acknowledged her legitimate security needs, the Begin government made generous concessions for peace, including the return of the whole of the Sinai to Egypt, the abandonment of strategic airbases located there, along with the evacuation of the settlements...
...M: Is the effort to link oil prices to political developments hurting Israel...
...The defeat of Frank Church, in their view, would undoubtedly be a great victory...
...Last month, moment chatted with Church about his views...
...He has been running hard for some months already, and he will almost surely have to keep running hard right up until election day...
...The Arabs in general, and, as it turns out, Libya in particular, cannot fail to be interested in his fortunes...
...From their perspective, the conservative (and reactionary) political action committees who are working so hard for Church's defeat are behaving quite sensibly...
...how much sweeter still were Church to be replaced in the Senate by so sympathetic an ally as Symms...
...it is easy to demonstrate that proposals such as those recently advanced by John Connally are politically naive, economically unsound and morally bankrupt...
...From a distance—and almost everywhere is a distance from Idaho—one might suppose that a man who has been serving in Washington for 23 years, whose popularity with his electorate is evidenced by the fact that he is the only Democrat in Idaho political history to have been re-elected to office, who has succeeded to the prestigious position of Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee of the United States Senate, should be able to view his prospects for a fifth term with considerable confidence...
...The bombing reprisals will end when PLO terrorism ends...
...Most of that money, for both candidates, will come from out of state...
...later, three separate groups of prominent Idaho political business and civic leaders were invited to tour Libya...
...He supported anti-boycott legislation, he opposed the sale of F-ISs to Saudi Arabia...
...And, lest one imagine that the issues for Symms are purely economic—a desire to relieve the American taxpayer of the costs of a Middle East settlement, an insistence on isolationism and neutrality—we have Symms' own words: "I am sure that most Americans have watched the emergence of Israel as a nation with great sympathy, but we should remember that the Arabs have been good friends with America over these same years...
...And by other political action committees which make a big thing of Church being a sophisticated East Coast liberal, essentially alienated from Idaho and Idahoans—although the committees themselves are almost all offshoots of out-of-state organizations...
Vol. 5 • December 1979 • No. 1
