Overview

President Lyndon Johnson and Secretary of State Dean Rusk were directly involved in the many discussions relating to the Arab-Israeli dispute, and the editor tried to document their roles in the policy deliberations and decisions as much as possible. Their meetings and correspondence with Arab and Israeli leaders, as well as their responses to pressures from both sides to provide sophisticated weaponry and their appointments of special emissaries to visit the troubled region, for example, are included in the documentary record.

Major topics covered in the volume include: U.S. efforts to promote the mediation efforts of UN Special Representative Gunnar Jarring, U.S. interest in encouraging negotiations between Israel and Jordan, the possibility of a rapprochement between the United States and the United Arab Republic, U.S. concern over the possible development of an Israeli nuclear weapons program, and the failure of U.S. efforts to limit the flow of arms to the Middle East.

The editor included a selection of intelligence estimates and analyses seen by high-level policymakers, especially those that were made available to President Johnson.