Have You Seen the Survey Yet?
Rosenbaum, Aaron
"HAVE YOU SEEN THE SURVEY YET?" The success story of Washington's hottest "confidential" newsletter AARON ROSENBAUM The Middle East Policy Survey. In two years of publication, the...
...citizens 'in a hostile environment.' Well-informed sources have told the Survey that the JCS paper alludes to the possibility of air combat with Israel as the U.S...
...policy' and that it would be best for the Reagan Administration to have 'a confrontation this year with Israel.' " Such information made more comprehensible the Administration's subsequent failure to push Syria to remove its missiles from Lebanon and its mishandled confrontation with Israel over the sale of AWACS to Saudi Arabia...
...The Survey's reporting has provided supporters of Israel with invaluable— and otherwise unattainable—insight into friends and foes inside the Reagan Administration...
...He adds: "So everyone with a legitimate story to tell knows that the Middle East Policy Survey is the one place where it will be reported with expertise and read by precisely the people who can understand what the story implies...
...Peter Frelinghuysen (R-NJ), where he was legislative assistant...
...the Associated Press, United Press International, the New York Daily News, the Christian Science Monitor, Newsweek and ABC News have all quoted the Survey during the past year...
...to explore the nuances of Middle East affairs for the informed reader...
...Straus and Wollack also reported the disenchantment at Defense with the Saudis and the annoyance in the White House and the State Department over Weinberger's mishandling of the proposed sale of Improved Hawk missiles to Jordan: " 'If I were to construct a scenario whereby the Administration would not present a Jordanian arms proposal to the Hill, Weinberger's trip would be it,' one State Department insider said...
...Both men were particularly visible during the 1978 campaign against the sale of F-15s to Saudi Arabia, and at the yearly markup sessions in which the specifics of the foreign aid bill were determined...
...His most recent article for moment was "PACs Vobiscum," which appeared in March 1982...
...Sam Ervin and who took over the responsibility for organizing and running the offices of the Survey...
...the back page is frequently given over to smaller stories that may develop into major issues some time down the road...
...He also emerged as an articulate lobbyist, urbane and thoughtful, with an instinctive sense of legislative strategy...
...official told the Survey, 'and they are frightened that the Congress could try to prevent it.' " In the other story widely reported from the February 26 issue, the Survey confirmed that Secretary of Defense Weinberger had negotiated a letter of agreement in Saudi Arabia over the use of the AWACS...
...During his tenure as AIPAC's #2 man, he established himself as an expert on both the Middle East and the legislative process—a formidable mix...
...Another critic, unhappy at the prospect of the paper surfacing, summed up a lot of reaction this way, 'If you are going to dream up something this crazy, don't put it on paper.'" Though the Survey deals frequently with the Arab-Israel conflict, it also assesses policy issues throughout the entire region—"From Marrakesh to Bangladesh" as the CIA defines it...
...Based on their experience at AIPAC, Straus and Wollack believed they could use their understanding of the infrastructure of policy-making to chronicle diplomacy, spotlight trends and trace events from their inception to their conclusion...
...In two years of publication, the Washington-based newsletter has become perhaps the single most influential and respected publication in its field...
...and to provide insights for the public, corporate and private constituencies concerned with the formulation of Middle East policies...
...Even so, it takes a lot of legwork...
...As noted earlier, its military analyses of the Iran-Iraq war have been up to the minute and far more prescient than those in the general press or electronic media...
...This is precisely in keeping with the original premise of the newsletter: to elucidate the policy processes behind the news...
...attempts to establish air cover...
...Readers learned first in the Survey that Libya's hit team never arrived in the U.S., that the AWACS would be offered to Saudi Arabia, that Israel was considering an air strike against the Osirak reactor in Baghdad, that the U.S...
...business is the contract to rebuild Iraqi oil facilities destroyed last year by the Iranian air force...
...Because of the glut, it's going to be a lot easier for us to make up for Libyan oil than it's going to be for Qaddafi to find a market for that 150,000 barrels,' one well-placed official told the Survey...
...The result is a devoted readership: One member of Congress has directed his staff to put the latest issue of the Survey at the top of his inbox when it arrives...
...and abroad...
...Though the Survey regularly makes headlines, Wollack and Straus are not "scoop artists...
...At AIPAC, he excelled in developing contacts within the bureaucracies of State and Defense...
...From its first issue, the Survey was tailored for the reader with a working knowledge of the policy-making process and the players involved...
...equipment, European contractors would have to begin an exorbitantly costly reconstruction from the ground up...
...The Survey noted in the same issue (June 19, 1981) that Defense Department officials "argued in writing that 'Israel must not be allowed to dictate U.S...
...The Survey's ability to acquire front-page stories first has actually increased in recent months...
...Emphasis added.] In its characteristic style, the Survey continued: "The consensus among U.S...
...After the Israeli decision to annex the Golan in December, the Survey got wind of a second memo from the Joint Chiefs, recommending a Draconian "suspension of military supplies and a cut in economic and military assistance...
...He is the sort of person with whom people like to talk and share what they know, an invaluable asset in the newsletter business...
...And with their myriad ties throughout official Washington, Wollack and Straus have been able to provide readers with advanced notice of personnel shifts, appointments and their implications both in the U.S...
...and Israel would be the first target of Weinberger and the JCS...
...moreover, the major sources of information were the daily press or advocacy publications with a definite editorial slant...
...And since everyone has this impression of the Survey, people in power feel it's essential to read it, and important to talk to Wollack and Straus on a regular basis...
...It's almost impossible to put something past Wollack and Straus...
...According to these sources, the paper emphasizes the need to deter Soviet intervention, calling for a blunt warning against Soviet military action...
...Though Straus and Wollack came out of AIPAC, the Jewish community has been relatively slow to accord the Middle East Policy Survey the recognition it deserves...
...Soviet cooperation in Lebanon and envisioned the possibility of U.S...
...Commerce and Treasury argued that these sanctions would hurt U.S...
...The Survey's assessments of internal politics in Libya, Egypt and Saudi Arabia have been extensively quoted in Washington, especially on Capitol Hill...
...It is now generally recognized that while in past Administrations, the Defense Department had been supportive of Israel and the State Department hostile, the situation is somewhat reversed today...
...Straus's ties to the Republican Party naturally complemented Wollack's credentials as a Democratic activist...
...Increasingly, the query "Have you seen the Survey yet...
...December 18, 1981) With a pattern now discerned, Straus and Wollack predicted that the recently signed Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the U.S...
...The Washington Post and the New York Times have repeatedly cited the Survey in their articles...
...Regarding the possibility of armed confrontation with Israel, the paper raised the specter of such an eventuality in connection with the need to evacuate U.S...
...They were proved correct within days, when the Administration suspended the strategic military cooperation called for in the MOU...
...Rebuilding the facilities would be a big ticket item for U.S...
...There was scant examination of the processes behind the headlines...
...is heard in Jewish communities as it has been in Congressional offices, the State Department, the Pentagon, embassies and corporate boardrooms for the past two years...
...Wollack was a superior lobbyist, blending a genuine feel for people and a carefully honed political sense with a strong commitment to Jewish concerns...
...As a result, the Joint Chiefs' paper assumed a full-scale war and was designed, according to reliable sources, to distance the U.S...
...Diplomats, congressmen, journalists and corporate officials await its biweekly issues with anticipation...
...The Israeli press, including Ma'ariv, the Jerusalem Post, Ha'aretz and Davar, report items from almost every issue...
...The Survey noted that the JCS paper had been dismissed out of hand by the White House, but that it had had an unsettling effect on policy makers throughout the Administration: " 'This is the most anti-Israel document ever produced by the U.S...
...Before going into business for themselves, Wollack and Straus were senior staffers for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the Washington lobby for American supporters of Israel...
...We're able to compete effectively with reporters who cover foreign affairs because we work on the Middle East exclusively and full time...
...Tracing the positions of the various bureaucratic players, the Survey continued: "Although a 'consensus' was reached at the National Security Council meeting yesterday, according to informed sources, objections were raised by the Commerce Department, which administers export controls, and the Treasury Department...
...Their reputation for accurate reporting has enhanced their credibility and opened new sources of information to them...
...The Survey's ability to locate, assess and confirm hard intelligence enabled it to alert its readers that Iran was taking the upper hand in its war with Iraq months before this became general knowledge...
...The Reagan Administration yesterday approved additional economic sanctions against Libya," the Survey reported on February 26...
...Baghdad was reportedly told by consultants that because the oil facilities were originally built with U.S...
...This structure allowed readers of the Survey to follow the starts and stops of the AWACS sale from the first approach made by the Saudis to Caspar Weinberger while the future Secretary of Defense was still with the Bechtel Corporation, to the last-minute reconstitution of the White House's lobbying effort under James Baker...
...contractors,' one U.S...
...military planners is that Israel would be unable to limit an attack to the PLO and would face major Syrian resistance...
...The Survey repeatedly has broken stories that went on to make national headlines: On February 26, 1982, the New York Times and the Washington Post gave page one coverage to two different stories that appeared in a single issue of the Survey...
...In a veritable universe of specialty newsletters, the Middle East Policy Survey has emerged as the one publication on which both Arabs and Israelis rely, and in which both Jewish leaders and oil company executives know they will see on-target analyses and informed predictions...
...This in turn has enabled them to provide their readership with even better stories and increased their influence in both the United States and the Middle East...
...Says Wollack: "We're interested in providing coverage of policy makers and the debates behind the issues...
...Perhaps the most impressive endorsement is the fact that while the cost of a subscription is Aaron Rosenbaum is a moment contributing editor and president of the Washington-based consulting firm of Aaron Rosenbaum and Associates...
...The Survey traced the next step in this process three months later, when it was reported in the March 12, 1982 edition that: "During the height of the 'war scare' over Lebanon, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) presented a contingency paper that recommended V .S...
...They reported after the Israeli raid on the Iraqi nuclear reactor that the Department of Defense had "recommended sanctions options, including a total cutoff in military and economic assistance, UN condemnation, reparations for Iraq and pressing Israel to submit its nuclear facilities to international inspection...
...government' one Administration insider declared . . . State Department officials were quick to draw some critical conclusions about Pentagon thinking...
...armed combat with Israel...
...As a result, the Survey has no real competition, and its renewal rate exceeds 90 percent...
...When they left AIPAC late in 1979, Straus and Wollack were joined by a third AIPAC staffer, Susan Friedman, who had previously worked for Sen...
...Two or three major stories are covered in depth in each four-page issue...
...The Survey is the product of the special skills and diverse contacts of its co-editors, Ken Wollack and Richard Straus...
...equipment to the Qaddafi regime . . . Administration officials also believe that the timing'couldn't be better...
...Richard Straus came to AIPAC from the staff of Rep...
...impose a settlement on Lebanon...
...In recent months, a number of federations and national Jewish organizations—perhaps noting that the Arab embassies, the Soviet Union and the oil companies have been quick to subscribe—have begun buying bulk subscriptions for key leaders and members...
...The newspaper columnists Evans and Novak, normally universally derisive, wrote last August that the Survey "has a reputation for accuracy...
...Correspondents traveling with Weinberger had not been able to uncover this, or even learn details of his marathon sessions with the Saudis...
...However, it then quickly departs from a get-tough position to propose procedures by which Israel would be forced to withdraw from Lebanon and a political solution imposed...
...their antennae for a self-serving leak are amazing," says one official of the Reagan Administration...
...Straus and Wollack have not altered their commitment to Israel, but they have been careful not to let their personal feelings affect their reporting of events...
...The two stories that were featured the same day by the Washington Post and the New York Times were typical for the Survey: terse, informed and seasoned with quotes from necessarily unidentified high-ranking sources...
...Readers of the Survey were made aware of this shift, its extent, its ideological bases and its causes early in 1981...
...At AIPAC, Wollack served as Legislative Director for seven years...
...The transformation of the office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) into a hotbed of anti-Israel feeling has been carefully tracked by Wollack and Straus...
...firms without 'bringing Qaddafi to his knees.' " This same sensitivity to infighting behind closed doors enabled the Survey to reveal in its next issue that it had been the Commerce Department, more than the State Department, that had pushed for Iraq's removal from the list of countries supporting terrorism and why: "The largest potential prize for U.S...
...To this end, the paper recommends a joint U.S.-Soviet political initiative for Lebanon with the Soviet role being based on Moscow's leverage with Damascus...
...In a two hour meeting of the National Security Council, chaired by the President, it was decided to proceed with a total cutoff of oil imports from Libya and a ban on the export of certain U.S...
...Those who care about the Middle East, and know how important reliable information about that troubled region is, have cause for celebration...
...Wollack and Straus had concluded that there was a vacuum in the coverage of news about the Middle East...
...If anyone had any doubts where the JCS was coming from on Middle East issues, this paper dispelled the last of them,' one official declared...
...would embargo Libyan oil, and that the Joint Chiefs of Staff had a contingency plan to bring in the Soviet Union to help the U.S...
...from Israel in order to avoid getting caught in the anticipated Arab backlash...
...about average for a top-flight insiders' publication, there are no free subscriptions...
...members of Congress, State Department officials, White House staffers and correspondents of the television networks willingly pay the $98 annual rate...
...He's a loose cannon,' another State official told the Survey...
...The newsy stories come as a natural part of our work...
...Another noted the willingness of the Pentagon to confront the Soviet Union elsewhere, but 'stand policy on its head' in the Middle East by encouraging Moscow to take a major role...
Vol. 7 • May 1982 • No. 5
