Description:
What happens to policies when a president dies in office? Do they get replaced by
the new president, or do advisers carry on with the status quo? In November 1963,
these were important questions for a Kennedy-turned-Johnson administration.
Komer, who had made it his personal mission to have the United States form better
relations with Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser after diplomatic relations were nearly
severed during the Eisenhower years. While Kennedy saw the benefit of having good,
personal relations with the most influential leader in the Middle East-believing
that it was the key to preventing a new front in the global Cold War-Johnson
did not share his predecessor's enthusiasm for influencing Nasser with aid. In US-Egypt Diplomacy under Johnson, Glickman brings to light the diplomatic
efforts of Komer, a masterful strategist at navigating the bureaucratic
process. Appealing to scholars of Middle Eastern history and US foreign
policy, the book reveals a new perspective on the path to a war that was
to change the face of the Middle East, and provides an important "applied
history" case study for policymakers on the limits of personal diplomacy.
Brief description: Gabriel Glickman is an Associate Fellow at Bar-Ilan University's Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies. His research is focused on history and international relations. His writing has appeared in publications such as The Washington Post, The National Interest, The Jerusalem Post, and The Hill.
Review Quotes:
""US-Egypt Diplomacy under Johnson is a well-researched and significant book which chronicles and analyzes how one government official, Robert Komer, shaped American-Egyptian diplomatic relations. For Komer, a grand strategy meant working with Nasser - in spite of ideological differences - to contain Soviet influence in the Middle East. This book is a must read for anyone wishing to understand how one individual greatly influenced diplomacy between Washington and Cairo from the Kennedy Administration to the Johnson Administration."" --Michael Sharnoff, National Defense University's Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies, USA
"Gabriel Glickman has written an illuminating history of U.S.-Egyptian diplomacy in the LBJ era. It's an account of world affairs, grand strategy, strong personalities, bureaucratic fancy footwork, idealism, calculation, lies and naiveté. Especially fascinating is the story of how Egypt's Nasser condemned the United States in justifying his actions that brought on the 1967 Six Days War with Israel. Were Nasser's complaints about U.S. policy a substantial factor in Egypt's war policy, or mostly a pretext? Could the United States have averted the war by giving more aid to Egypt? These are worthy questions, and Professor Glickman's book contributes importantly to the debate." --Douglas J. Feith, Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute, USA and former US Under Secretary of Defense for Policy