Carter and the Jews VII. The Andrew Young Brouhaha, or Life on the Mississippi

...The Jewish sociological researcher whom our sophisticated New York publisher commissioned to do that book on Jewish vulnerability agrees "The Young affair was calculated to divide blacks and Jews," he maintains "The old Southern ruling strategy was to pit poor blacks against poor whites, since Carter needs both these constituencies, he pits blacks against Jews...

...The first arose out of the events that culminated in Andrew Young's resignation last August Some of those events remain in controversy, or at least subject to more than one interpretation Among Jews it is nearly universally agreed that Cyrus Vance was responsible for Young's removal, not "the Jews " At no time had there been any Jewish agitation directed against Young's position at the United Nations He was fired by Vance because, as the phrase at the time had it, he "lied to his boss"-asserted that he had not been talking to the PLO in New York against instructions, when in fact he had...

...Often enough the American Idea, with all its reassurances, can dazzle Jews into optimism, but lately it has been the misgivings that have dominated In the last 10 months there have been two large breaches in the civic ground rules...

...The timing, Rabbi Schindler is convinced, was "a political decision ' "This much is crystal-clear Jews were blamed for 'getting' Andy Young...

...In a number of interviews with prominent Jews on this question and others, I encountered only two dissenters from Schindler's analysis The first was Republican Senator Jacob Javits of New York, who thinks Young "picked his own time, and decided to sign off when he'd had it " The second dissenter was a politically experienced Ohio attorney, a Carter appointee with an important technical position The Administration, he says, had no intention of antagonizing Jews in letting Young go "Quite the opposite They were anticipating Jewish sensitiveness You can't be angry at Carter for firing Young over PLO contacts if you would have been just as angry if he hadn't fired him You can't have it both ways " Contrary to black opinion, however, the Ohioan sees "no extrinsic evidence of cause and effect" between Carter's action and Jewish pressure, the Administration, he believes, made the decision on its own, on the merits, and with no ulterior design...

...Blacks nonethelesss accused Jews of having engineered the firing in retaliation for Young's visit with the PLO, Jews denied this, at first levelly, then -as black accusations cascaded-heatedly, the accusations grew fiercer, and often fled the issue to touch on other angers W hat was later to become John Connally's Mideast argument turned up in a lively fashion, but with a black "perceived interests" twist It oil supplies tailed, economic dislocations would follow, blacks would be the first to feel the hurt, and the Jews would be responsible for black injury Besides, blacks said, the U S Ambassador m Vienna, Philip M Kaiser, himself a Jew, had gone to see the PLO and had not been Fired, or even mildly reprimanded...

...Rabbi Alexander Schindler, who heads Reform Judaism and is a former chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, believes he has the answer Administration thinking, he speculates, was that "if they were going to drop him at all, this was an opportune moment, because some of the anger would be deflected against the Jews " A high-ranking White House spokesman-Jody Powell, presumably-was reported on network television as having remarked that Young's forced resignation would "exacerbate tensions" between blacks and Jews...

...What would have happened," the ADL's Nathan Perlmutter asks, "to a white ambassador who had said 'Cuba is a stabilizing force in Angola"' Or 'Communism was never a threat to me personally"?Or 'Khomeini is destined for sainthood"' The focus on Young's blackness rather than on his competency," Perlmutter concludes, "dictated his retention ". Indeed, one may wonder why Andrew Young's he about his conversation with the PLO was any more offensive than his views on the Ayatollah's sanctity If Vance was looking to get rid of Young, why did he choose this occasion'' Vance knew that-whatever the pretext-firing Andrew Young would provoke black fury He had been afraid to risk that before Why did he risk it now...

...Yes, queasy, too Both confident and ill-at-ease at the same time...

...The psyche of American Jews has its volatility, its self-contradiction, its self-doubt It is a mood frequently dampened by misgivings, melancholia, moping, worry is never far away Current example The attraction to John Anderson's independent Presidential candidacy is shadowed by the disclosure that he once proposed that the United States be declared a Christian nation Anderson now calls that a "mistake," and expresses wholehearted regret Accepting that regret, even with a corresponding wholeheartedness, American Jews still cannot feel altogether comfortable about a candidate who once thought to make them strangers in their own land...

...Theodore Mann tries to put the whole thing in perspective "Carter's six-week silence after firing Young, his not stating outright that he took direct responsibility for it, should be placed beside the Billy Carter affair He shouldn't be expected to publicly disown Andy Young, who is like his own brother to him They are extremely, extremely close to each other, emotionally and personally It's almost a blood relationship It was as hard for the President to contemplate disowning Andy as it was Billy-so he ran away from it, to the Mississippi " But Perlmutter contradicts Mann with an aphorism "When one enters political life one becomes married to the commonweal, and one can't keep going out with old friends ". In Mark Twain's novel of the Mississippi, it is Huck Finn's black companion Jim who calls, "Come back to the raft, Huck honey'" One critic has memorably viewed the black man and the white boy as unconfessed lovers Carter, going down that same river day after day with his political hp buttoned, heard the repeated cries of Jews "Come back to the raft, Jim honey'" And stayed away, even though on this notorious occasion the raft was a national platform aboard which the President alone could bind black and Jewish wounds He did not bind them Most Jews felt they had been made to walk the plank...

...For blacks, anti-Semitism was only fallout, the core of the Young affair was that the black community was made to lose one of its most prestigious representatives on the world scene For Jews, black anti-Semitism was near the center, but not the center The center was the mystery of Carter's silence after Young's resignation "That silence," a Jewish press officer snarls, "that six-week period-vicious, disgusting, an abdication of responsibility Floating down the Mississippi while the misunderstanding got worse and worse " In the Jewish community there had been daily expectations that Carter would instantly cut through mounting black blame by bearing witness to his own actions...

...What began to drop away, in the middle of all that storming, was the public reason for Young's resignation that he had maneuvered himself into confessing an untruth and had embarrassed Vance, not that he had talked to the PLO (Most observers suspected that he was carrying out a tacit State Department policy in any case, as the Vienna incident only confirmed) One theory is that Vance had long been embarrassed by Young, felt him to be a liability, and was looking for an opportunity to bounce him Vance was not the only one Assistant Secretary of State for the Near East Harold Saunders had never liked Young...