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Leave Fred Malek Alone

By on 6.7.10 @ 6:09AM

The idea that he is or was an anti-Semite is insane.

There may be a more ridiculous story than that Fred Malek back in the much missed Nixon days was a kind of “Jew counter” in some kind of anti-Semitic way, but it would be hard to imagine what it would be.

To make a silly story short, back in roughly 1970-71, there was a string of bad economic numbers coming out of the prestigious Bureau of Labor Statistics. Richard Nixon, then President, was told by his top economic advisers, of whom my beloved father, Herbert Stein, was one, that the real economic picture was better than that and that the BLS was emphasizing the negative, although without in any way lying.

Richard Nixon, in a silly moment, asked if the economists in the BLS who were giving out the data were his political enemies and if they were Jews. Now, bear in mind, Nixon was BY FAR the best friend the Jewish people have ever had since Abraham. He had the most Jewish appointees to high offices, the most pro-Israel foreign and defense policy in history, saved Israel in the Yom Kippur War, put Russia at bay about helping Egypt in that war — was just the best friend Jews have ever had, including Jews themselves.

But Nixon believed, with good reason, that most economists at the BLS were Jews and that most of them were Democrats and wondered if there was some connection between those facts and the bad news from the BLS.

Nixon never intended to do a thing about it, never intended to punish anyone, was just curious about why the BLS seemed to be slanting the news the way he thought it was being slanted.

Bear in mind, again, this is the same Nixon who risked everything to save Israel, who had a Jew as top foreign policy adviser, a Jew as head of the Fed and a Jew (my father as of 1972) as Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers.

So, Bob Haldeman, chief of staff at the White House, was asked to find out about the political and ethnic complexion of the BLS economists. Again, there was never any hint of any kind of consequence and everyone, including RN, knew it was a kind of silly, pixilated, quest.

So, Haldeman tasked his deputy, Fred Malek, one of the nicest guys on the planet, with finding this out. Malek did it, and reported it, and that was the end of it.

Now, again, to coin a phrase, bear in mind, this was 40 years ago, when the same kind of PC notions that we take for granted about race and ethnicity were not in vogue. It was routine to discuss ethnicity in terms of achievement, ability, crime, et cetera. Now, of course, the only ethnic thinking allowed is to hold Israel to an impossible standard of assisted suicide.

But, again, no action was taken by Nixon about the BLS, and life went on. It was just one of RN’s brief obsessions. I doubt if he remembered it five days later. 

Fred Malek went on to build an enormous career after government working mostly with Jews. Nixon, again, went on to be the true savior of Eretz Israel. To allege, 40 years later, that a fine public servant without a morsel of racism in him, Fred Malek, was somehow an anti-Semite, to allege that Nixon was an anti-Semite, is simple nonsense. That’s it. End of story.

 

About the Author

Ben Stein is a writer, actor, economist, and lawyer living in Beverly Hills and Malibu. He writes “Ben Stein’s Diary” for every issue of The American Spectator.

Letter to the Editor View all comments (40) |

Wicked Dickie - Virginia| 6.7.10 @ 7:57AM

For some reason, this reminds me of the old story about people around Lincoln who told him General Grant drank alcohol to excess, smoked cigars, etc. He is supposed to have said something like: "find out what Grant drinks and send a barrel of it to each of my other generals."

erp| 6.7.10 @ 9:04AM

Ben, people are content with the fiction in the media and they don't want no stinking facts!

PolishKnight| 6.7.10 @ 10:34AM

Ben says: " It was routine [40 years ago] to discuss ethnicity in terms of achievement, ability, crime, et cetera. Now, of course, the only ethnic thinking allowed is to hold Israel to an impossible standard of assisted suicide. "

I know Ben's on our side. Really. But that statement is at best a bad slip-up. Obama and Sotomayer built their careers by playing the race card and bashing whites, particularly white males.

When are Republicans going to take this issue head on? Say a lot about Democrats, but they at least make a serious pretense at representing their special interest constituencies. The Republicans do little to earn the loyalty of the 65% or so white males that turn up for them. When they bother to turn up that is (I know a lot who stayed at home for the McCain election.) McCain apparently didn't seem to care since he was at La Raza pandering for acceptance. Good going McCain! That seemed to work out for ya.

stmichrick| 6.11.10 @ 10:54AM

Face it; in the media world, the only ones allowed to make generalizations about race and class are liberals.

Margie| 6.7.10 @ 1:17PM

Liberal Jews are as to conservative Jews what Liberal Christians are to conservative Christians.

Enemies!!

Michael| 6.7.10 @ 6:43PM

It's a old sad story. "Toss enough mud on the wall and hope some of it will stick."

Marc Jeric| 6.7.10 @ 7:09PM

In my long life I went to school with, worked for and with and was a boss to, and was in friendly relations with a large number of Jews - in Europe, in Latin America, and here in the USA. In general, their education level, their knowledge of culture, history, and literature, and their intelligence has been a remarkable degree superior to the average level of other races.
But - in spite of that, their overwhelming sympathies have been with the left; socialism, communism, or the far-left Democrats here. I could never explain to myself this huge lacune of judgment.

Margie| 6.7.10 @ 7:31PM

It's simple, Marc. The Liberal mindset is the easy way out. It's much easier to live in a fantasy world when you're a Liberal. No requirements, no commitment, no facing of reality. And most of all, no right from wrong. Every thing's relative. Keeps life simple. Whatever the nationality, Religion, or ethnicity.
It's just a sad fact.

Leah Burton | 6.7.10 @ 8:14PM

Then why is he so comfortable supporting Christian Zionism? Things aren't "Just that simple" Ben...

Mark S. Devenow| 6.7.10 @ 9:34PM

I am entirely prepared to concede that Nixon was the best friend - with the possible exception of Bush 43 - the Jews ever had in the White House. And I do believe that this (the entire controvesy now surfacing regarding Malek) was something which Nixon did not really want to have carried out (other than as a passing fancy).

Still, even if this amounted to nothing more than a velleity for Nixon, certain people numbered among his minions warmed to the task of purging Jews from the BLS, over a sustained period spanning the whole of 1971 and in a manner that is acutely disturbing. What is more, the paper trail on this (which I read hours ago on Slate) demonstrates that this effort didn't just evaporate with the President's dark mood.

Now, I know that the significance of this is negligible/minuscule next to ordering the transfer of weapons to Israel from NATO stocks and in the course of successive overflights which made the Pentagon go (almost literally) nuts. But to efface the BLS matter wholesale really doesn't serve the historic record either.

Jeffrey Whelchel| 6.9.10 @ 11:21AM

Mark, I recently stumbled into the Fred Malek controversy over on Huffington Post. An attempt is being made to say anyone with any association of Fred Malek should not serve in public office.

Ben Stein says that is ridiculous. You seem to indicate there is more to the story. Do you think his actions were so egregious that anyone using his expertise should not be elected?

Remember an effort was made to say that Obama should not be President due to his associations, Ayers in particular. That reasoning was firmly rejected by the left.

Is it your opinion that Malek was worse than Ayers so we should cast off anyone associated with him?

Rich Rostrom| 6.8.10 @ 12:17AM

"I could never explain to myself this huge lacune of judgment."

Because cultural traditionalists and political conservatives were, for hundreds of years, intensely and often violently anti-semitic. The Cossacks weren't liberals. Neither were the anti-Dreyfusards, or the Spanish Inquisition, or the real-estate developers who put Jew-exclusion covenants in property titles.

The abolition of invidious racial and religious prejudice, and the discrimination and persecution that resulted, was largely a liberal project.

(That's a big reason why liberals feel compelled to see racism everywhere. It's the one thing they were truly right about, and they want to go on fighting that battle forever.)

The modern enthusiasm of evangelical Christians and conservatives for Israel and Jews is a fairly sharp break with the past. And it isn't complete. Out in the paleocon fever swamps, there are still some people who have what a National Review staffer called "the Jew thing". (He was explaining to John Derbyshire why a once-prominent conservative writer had vanished from NR's pages: "Oh, he got the Jew thing".)

PolishKnight| 6.8.10 @ 9:45AM

Rich, the left didn't just out of the blue decide to oppose "racism" in principle anymore than the "war on terror" is literally a war on terrorism.

The left originated as a working class white movement and inherited cultural anti-semitism from it. Then... WWII happened and socialist FDR went to war with National Socialism. This is the "war" that Jews continue to fight (and understandably so especially from an emotional viewpoint.)

My working class father was born in the FDR era and he also was closely tied emotionally to the Democrat party to the day he died despite opposing most of the leftist agenda.

Then... the cold war occurred and the USA was at war with "good" socialism, Josef Stalin and the USSR. This put the left's public socialist ambitions on hold for a while since they couldn't brag about being communists. At best, they could just undermine the war effort at home. They switched from class warfare against the rich, foreigners, and minorities and did a 180: They buddied up with them. It was a stroke of genius. They discovered "white guilt" and the use of hyper-chivalry in buying the women's vote with the support of conservative men. The jumbled big tent of different groups all seemed to vote as one and could be far more easily herded than a big elephant of a homogeneous population.

Until... they knee jerked and brought in radical Islam in opposition to the Bushes. It's a massive error we are witness to. They have stabbed one of their most powerful constituencies in the back and they can't back out without losing face. As Helen Thomas and Hillary Clinton know: race trumps gender.

Margie| 6.8.10 @ 10:59AM

I have never met a Paleo-con who isn't anti-Israel.

Also, you're wrong about evangelical Christians being for the Jews a fairly sharp break with the past. Christians have always backed Israel. Real Christians, that is. You must be talking about phony, Liberal so called Christians who side with the enemy. You can tell them by their hatred of Israel, to this very day.

Ploni Almoni | 6.8.10 @ 7:55PM

While I generally agree with Ben Stein, I find this article troubling. Stein says "there was never any hint of any kind of consequence." I suspect Harold Goldstein would have disagreed, since Malek's memo says Mr. Goldstein was to be transferred to a less important position so that someone (presumably gentile) can take over the employment analysis functions that Goldstein had performed.

If this transfer was because of Goldstein's politics, then why was it even necessary to raise the issue of his religion?

Timothy Noah| 6.8.10 @ 9:14PM

Ben Stein's account is stunningly inaccurate.
Malek's reporting to Nixon how many Jews worked at BLS was not most certainly NOT "the end of it." The Washington Post reported 22 years ago that two of the Jews were swiftly demoted, and a memo that surfaced three years ago in the Nixon archives proved Malek was intimately involved in the demotions--something Malek denied fervently to the Post, and has never come clean about. We have since learned from subsequent document releases that FOUR Jews on Malek's Jew list were demoted within two months of Malek submitting his charming census. A fuller account of all this (one that includes links to the documents) can be found here:

http://www.slate.com/id/2254653

Jeffrey| 6.9.10 @ 12:04PM

Took the time to read the article you linked to from slate. I can see how you might interpret the article as proof that shows Malek as being a "exuberant liar" as Evan Thomas from Newsweek said. I have no vested interest in defending him as I didn't even know who he was until a few days ago. However, since he is being used to as a smear against GOP leaders (Bush, Palin), I think we need to get our facts straight.

Based on the slate article itself and the memo's linked an argument can be made that Malek did not lie, at least technically.

The key point as shown by Malek himself is: "[The Post's article was] offensive and incorrect in suggesting that I would have engaged in any attempt to jeopardize someone's job because of their religious affiliation."

Timothy Noah linked the memo showing 2 members with Jewish names were reassigned to other positions in the BLS. He claims this was due to their religion. However, in the same article he also says, "both had displeased Nixon by supporting objective (as opposed to politicized) interpretations of unemployment data.". Though moving them because they had displeased Nixon could be argued as wrong, it also could be used to exonerate Malek because he has a reason outside of their religion to discipline them. This would be in line with both Clinton & Bush removing lawyers from the Justice department who were not loyal.

Malek may have committed some wrong acts while acting under Nixon's orders. We all know Nixon committed some wrong acts. However, nothing in the Slate article is very strong evidence to show he is an anti-semite.

And the very notion is kind of ridiculous because the Democratic party tends to honor anti-semites until they are extremely obvious with their statements such as Helen Thomas was.

--
"It's what you learn after you know it all that counts." -- John Wooden

Former Archivist| 6.10.10 @ 6:59AM

I was one of the federal archivists responsible for determining the disclosability of the information on the Nixon tapes about the BLS. The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) faced considerable difficulties in releasing some of the records that contained Nixon’s initial directions to Haldeman and staff to check into what the President called a Jewish cabal at the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This suggests some concern on the Nixon side as to what had occurred there.

Federal archivists marked such material for statutory release in 1987 but Nixon blocked the agency from releasing some BLS items. Items he blocked as personal or privileged included a document in which the President asked that aides uncover “Jewish cells” in the BLS and directed “put a non-Jew in charge of each.” The Nixon-contested items were not released until 1996 (Nixon died in 1994). Moreover, the Nixon tapes ,which contained the President’s ruminations about Jews at the BLS, became the subjects of fierce battles between Nixon’s representatives and NARA, with Nixon’s lawyers seeking a narrower, more restrictive definition of privacy and less revelation of derogatory comments than did archivists.

There are several ways that Nixon’s associates can look at the core issue, depending on whether they most value a learning culture or a political culture. Mr. Stein appears to lean towards the latter.

Mr. Malek says he initially resisted Nixon’s order. That may be the case. H. R. (Bob) Haldeman himself was known to sometimes offer passive resistance to some of Nixon’s orders and directives and to wait for the President to cool down. This was not the case in 1971 with the BLS, however. The core issue is whether or not the President can take political affiliation into account in dealing with civil servants. By law, he cannot. He only can use politics to determine whom he places into certain positions as political appointees. A president has every right to expect political appointees to act with the White House’s agenda in mind. He cannot and may not compel civil servants to act politically, however. It’s a core concept that is supposed to protect civil servants regardless of which party is in control.

Of Nixon’s former aides, some of the the ones who went to prison (Haldeman, Egil “Bud” Krogh) have offered the most thoughtful, insightful accounts (in oral history interviews and books) of what it was like to work as at-will employees in the White House in jobs with a volatile mix of policy and political considerations. Insularity and loss of perspective regarding opponents can become big problems in such a situation. Haldeman and Krogh chose to try to educate people about what they did wrong and why.

Perhaps like some of Nixon’s other aides, Mr. Malek will leave the world of politics behind one day and write candidly about his experiences in the Nixon White House and what political considerations can compel people to do. It was a White House where, for better or worse, an intelligent and able president trapped himself because he focused so much on “do it to them before they do it to you.” Having voted for Nixon in 1972, I believe a learning culture serves these issues best. However difficult or unpleasant, We cannot and should not avert our eyes from all the factors that led to Nixon's downfall.

Syd Chaden| 6.10.10 @ 4:21PM

Thanks Ben. Isn't it interesting that Nixon, who liberal Democrats label an anti-Semite, acted to support Israel, whereas Obama, who claims that he is pro-Israel, has taken one action after another to undermine Israel. Nixon's and/or Malek's alleged misdeeds toward Jews in Government, at worst, could not approach the harm to Jews that the destruction of Israel would do. I hope that events don't force that realization upon those myopic Jews who insist on supporting Obama.

exbrown| 12.12.10 @ 1:12AM

Now that more Nixon tapes have been released where he says that jews feel inferior, are insecure, and therefor over compensated and that “The Jews are just a very aggressive and abrasive and obnoxious personality.” Would anyone care to change their minds about Nixon being anti- semitic?

fjdski| 7.1.10 @ 5:01AM

beijing massage

chamilia | 12.24.10 @ 3:42AM

Yeah I guess {throws my bag on the bed, kisses your cheek
"do you ever feel like a plastic bag" no, Katie Perry, I cannot say that I have.

Occam's Tool| 5.12.11 @ 2:35PM

Dear "ex:"

Nixon saved Israel. What he says under stress is what he says under stress. He saved millions of Jews.

Paula| 4.14.12 @ 7:53PM

He may or may not be anti-semitic, but we KNOW he was part of a group of drunken thugs who killed & cooked a dog. You have strange heroes, indeed.

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