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Special Report
What Did Arafat Get for Killing U.S. Diplomats?
Only fame, fortune, dozens of trips to the White House, and a Nobel Peace Prize.
(Page 2 of 3)
With little dissent, the PLO leader was lionized by most of the world media as an Arab “Moses” struggling to lead his people to the promised land. He became a welcome guest in presidential palaces and residences around the world — most especially including the White House. Time magazine called Arafat the Clinton administration’s “Most Frequent Visitor — President Clinton has held more tete-a-tetes with the Palestinian leader than any other world leader during his eight years in office.” Arafat also became a near-billionaire (according to his former finance minister, more than $900 million of western aid money had gone missing) — cited by Forbes magazine as one of the world’s wealthiest leaders.
Neither Nixon (then up to his neck in alligators as a result of the Watergate scandal) nor the ever ambitious and opportunistic Kissinger ever came close to denouncing Arafat for his role in ordering the execution of U.S. diplomats. To call the leader of the PLO out for the murders of an American ambassador and his top assistant would have terminated any possibility of future relations with the murderer and his followers.
Later on in 1973, as Kissinger became secretary of state as well as national security adviser, he was obviously keen to keep open all channels of communication with the Arab world, including relations with Arafat — both because of the Yom Kipper War and, tied to that, the OPEC oil embargo, which soon caused gas prices in the U.S. to skyrocket and the U.S. to tumble into what was then the worst recession in post-World War II history. As the world’s biggest oil exporter, Saudi Arabia was one of Arafat’s strongest supporters.
Arafat made his first visit to the United States (an event that could not have happened without State Department approval) in November of 1974, and he made the most of it — in terms of thumbing his nose at the U.S.
Wearing a sidearm (or at least an empty holster; stories vary) and accompanied by several of the participants in the Khartoum operation, Arafat made his famous debut at the United Nations in New York on November 13 — using the occasion to denounce Zionism as racism.
And it is not as though Arafat and the various branches of the PLO under his command had been staying quiet and behaving well between the time of the murders in Khartoum and Arafat’s appearance at the UN.
In May 1974, Palestinian terrorists entered Israel from Lebanon and took over a high school in the town of Maalot, six miles south of border — killing 22 children (mostly 15-year-old girls) with grenades and automatic weapons and injuring many more. Another similar attack a month earlier killed 18 people in the town of Kiryat Shmona.
THERE WAS AT LEAST ONE person who was intimately involved in tracking the events in Khartoum who was outraged by the decades-long cover-up that followed. His name is James J. Welsh and he contacted me after reading a recent article of mine in TAS entitled “Obama Fiddled … While Benghazi burned … and a U.S. election approached.”
Now 66-years old and running a grocery store in the coastal resort town of Manzanita in northern Oregon, Welsh still seethes with indignation over what happened inside the Nixon administration over that lost weekend of 40 years ago.
In achieving a top security clearance as a result of his knowledge of Arabic and his skill as a communications technician, Welsh served in the U.S. Navy as a foreign language specialist assigned to the National Security Agency (NSA) to intercept and analyze foreign radio transmissions in the Middle East.
From 1969 to 1972 he worked at an intercept site just outside of Nicosia, Cyprus, and from then until 1974 he worked at NSA headquarters at Fort Meade near Washington, D.C. — supporting his old colleagues back in Cyprus and elsewhere in the Middle East.
In a series of interviews lasting over eight hours, Welsh told me this story of what happened between Thursday, Feb. 28 — the day before the takeover of the Saudi Embassy — and Monday, March 4, when different agencies in the U.S. government were just beginning to take stock of Saturday night’s disaster in Khartoum.
This is the first part of his story:
Late in the morning on Thursday, the teletype machine at his office at NSA headquarters clattered with the receipt of a printed message from an old colleague at the listening post in Cyprus.
“This is Mike,” the message said.
About the Author
Andrew B. Wilson, a frequent contributor to The American Spectator, writes from St. Louis.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (50) | Leave a comment
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Aristocat| 3.1.13 @ 7:06AM
Oh, yeah, he got terminal cancer from the CIA, according to our friends in the Muslim world.
Gary B| 3.1.13 @ 7:08AM
The US government is as corrupt as they come. What else is new?
Albert Constantine Jr.| 3.1.13 @ 7:41AM
If the summary of events is accurate, at the time of the 1973 attack, kidnapping and murders, the President (Nixon) was wrapped up in dealing with matters stemming from his reelection; the Secretary of State (Kissinger) was too concerned with his political future to respond decisively.
This is all starting to sound very familiar.
TLP| 3.1.13 @ 8:53AM
You got that right, A.B.
What did the Muslim Brotherhood get for all of their years of Bombings, Rapes, and Murders? From Anwar Sadat, to the Rapes of Women, protesting for Freedom, at Tahir Square? They got Egypt. They got $1.5 Billion in Cash, Free F-16s, and Hundreds of Free Abrhams Tanks from the man that Hamas believes was sent here by their God of Murder, to Destroy the Jews and Deliver Jerusalem into Muslim hands.
And they got all of these things, compliments of another Nobel Peace Prize Recipient who has Funneled Weapons to our Enemies, put our Troops in Africa to Protect Muslim Warlords. Done everything to Weaken our only Middle Eastern Ally - Israel - thus guaranteeing War. And has, from the beginning, intentionally Closed his Eyes to everything the Iranian Madmen are doing.
He had the opportunity to Support the Iranian Peace Protesters. He did nothing.
He had opportunity to Support the Syrian People, 70,000 Dead ago. He waited for Al Quaeda to take over the Rebel Movement.
He had the opportunity to SAVE FOUR AMERICANS IN BENGHAZI.
He went to bed, instead.
But, he's a Peace Prize Laureatte.
Apparently, that's not quite what it used to be.
Apparently, the Nobel Peace Prize has overtaken "Opinions" on the No Big Deal list.
Nobel Peace Prizes?
They're like @ssholes. Everybody's got one.
Gary B| 3.1.13 @ 2:44PM
Like I said, "The US government is as corrupt as they come. " It's barely worth paying attention.
Bob K| 3.2.13 @ 8:23AM
It seems more likely that it is "opinion" or in the words of the historian, John Lukacs, the "accumulation of opinions" that has taken over the process of how the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded. "......... because the accumulation of opinions can be manufactured and even falsified through the machinery of publicity, at times even against contrary appearances." From the chapter, "The Accumulation of Opinions" in "DEMOCRACY AND POPULISM Fear and Hatred." Yale Univ. Press, 2005. (Written before we ever heard of Obama)
Bob K| 3.2.13 @ 8:26AM
See page 47 in the book.
AlanAnti-RoveCheneyBrooks | 3.1.13 @ 3:07PM
TLP,
I still think nothing Arabs and Shiites have dome compares to what Germany, and its allies in the Baltic, Romania, Poland, and the Ukraine did. I just read about the anti-semites in those areas who did the dirty work for Germany '39- '44.
Poland , the Ukraine, etc., were not innocent nations, they were were filled to the brim with anti-semites.
Occam's Tool| 3.1.13 @ 6:42PM
True, they were filled to the brim with anti-semites---and still are.
But you would be surprised what Muslims have done in the killing contest---and they were allies of Nazi Germany as well.
AlanAnti-RoveCheneyBrooks | 3.1.13 @ 7:14PM
What we were always told was that Poland was invaded by Jew-hating Germans... but what left out?:
Jew-hating Poland was invaded by Jew-hating Germans; and then less than two years later Jew-hating Ukraine was invaded by Jew-hating Germans.
Look that up in your Funk and Wagnalls.
Alan| 3.2.13 @ 5:43PM
Ukranians were used as thugs by the Germans in the Warsaw Ghetto frequently along with other Baltic state lunatics.
Intelligent Design| 3.1.13 @ 8:25AM
Arafat, Carter and Obama --- all winners of the Nobel peace prize and birds of a feather. This is in the same league as Sir Edward Ted Kennedy being knighted for DUI manslaughter.
TLP| 3.1.13 @ 9:17AM
Didn't he get an Award from Triple A, and an Honorary Lifetime Membership to every Liberal Women's Group?
Or, did Clinton get that one, as well as one from the Dry Cleaners Association?
Al Adab| 3.1.13 @ 8:29AM
Nobel peace Prize. Rather like our current chief executive eh?
Non negotiation with terrorists should be the national policy.
Albert: Nixon was re-elected in Nov of 72 so by 73 it was the Watergate lynching that was beginning to distract the government. Remember the daily hearings of the Irwin committee? They were carried live on network TV day in and day out, but I cannot be sure from memory that they started as early as March. Maybe someone can look it up and give us the timeline.
Albert Constantine Jr.| 3.1.13 @ 8:47AM
I recognized the timeline, which was why I said "Stemming from his reelection", as while I couldn't recall either when the hearings began, the scandal was beginning to unravel (the break-in was June of 1972).
Of course, the big foreign policy story of those weeks before this would likely have been the return of the POWs from Viet Nam.
Al Adab| 3.1.13 @ 10:39AM
Thanks Albert:
When did the televised hearings start? The whole witch hunt paralyzed the government for months.
Albert Constantine Jr.| 3.1.13 @ 10:50AM
The Senate hearings began in May of 1973, and between the trials and testimony, along with all of the other intrigue domestically and internationally, still managed to garner front page attention on all of the newspapers I was delivering at the time.
Al Adab| 3.1.13 @ 10:55AM
And BTW, great entries on the contest. Love the music notation. Proves there is a song lyric for every contingency. Ba, Ba, Ba.
KennesawJack| 3.1.13 @ 8:34AM
If this be true, Nixon should be dug up and shot. That being said, I hope Obamarx doesn't see this article. If he does, he'll probably want to award Arafata a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Hardcard| 3.1.13 @ 8:53AM
What really happened in the past, arafat was a murdering, lying terrorist with a penchant for greed. He was adored by the left and the media. Nixon was hounded by the left 24/7 and succumbed to the constant propaganda of left and it's media, Nixon fell into the trap of lies and personal attack, he became paronoid and lost control of his office. Since the fall of Nixon, at the hands and instigation of the left, our country is falling into the abyss of hatred and destruction, the enemies of American exceptionalism and freedom have tasted the blood of their evil victory over the rule of law. soros, buffet, obama, and the media moguls are in the drivers seat on the road to fulfilling the dreams of marxists, progressives, socialists, jihadis,alinskyites, and sociopaths banning together for the destruction of a valiant idea individual FREEDOM. They are treading on We The People.
TLP| 3.1.13 @ 9:33AM
Are you sure your name's not Hardass?
I get the anger, but I also know that he will never finish his term. You can only beat the Family Dog so much, before he Bares his Teeth.
He'll overplay his hand. He'll do one too many a person Wrong. And in a Country of over 300 Million, that can be a problem.
The best way would be if the Secret Service would actually Stop doing their Jobs, and Start remembering their OATH.
"Protect the Constitution of the United States of America from All Enemies, both Foreign and DOMESTIC."
They are the First Responders, should a Madman get his hands on the Reigns of Power.
Let's hope that they know what that means, and that they believe it.
Let's hope they appreciate the Responsibility they've been Tasked with.
loulou| 3.1.13 @ 11:29AM
He's already overplayed his hand and what has happened? Nothing--while Obamacare continues on.
Belianis | 3.1.13 @ 2:10PM
A bad driver may disregard the rules of the road as long as he likes, but eventually he will crash and burn in the worsest manner, and everybody in the car with him will also crash and burn in the most worst manner.
Just give time for the inevitable to happen.
TLP| 3.1.13 @ 2:43PM
Exactly.
Alan| 3.2.13 @ 5:46PM
Fate always has a hand of cards to play in these kinds of games. This marxist clown's ego and haughtyness will be his undoing.
Paul Kotik| 3.1.13 @ 9:59AM
Turns out Baroque Obama is, as his flacks insist, very tough on terror.
He hasn't invited the guys who killed his diplomats in Libya to dinner at the manor house.
Not yet, anyway.
Stan Redmond| 3.1.13 @ 12:22PM
Obama is looking for the murders. Just like OJ he is doing his investigations from the golf course.
Alan| 3.2.13 @ 5:47PM
The juice has been doing his investigations from prison lately.
cicero| 3.1.13 @ 10:05AM
Careful Tim. The State Dept. has been on the side of the Arab League since before WWII. The entire Department should have been disbanded by Eisenhour. They have been a disgrace to this country, and have been working against America's interests for more than 60 years.
The only way to stop the nonsense is to cut off the money. We don't need their oil, if we drill our own. There is no excuse for giving them weapons, as they will only use them against our interests. without the West giving them money and weapons, they will be back to killing one another with swords and clubs. They can produce nothing on their own, and have no ability to leave home without aide.
The folks living in Gaza and the West Bank have allowed their leaders to steal all the money that the foolish West sends. Pictures of Gaza show an area on the berautiful coast of the Med,
with high rise luxury apartments and office buildings for the use of the "leadership". For the West to treat these folks as victims, or worse still, honorable negotiating partners if the hight of folly.
loulou| 3.1.13 @ 11:31AM
The State Dept has always been run by Arabists. Now we have Muslims in our FBI, CIA, Homeland Security, the military, etc.
vtwin| 3.1.13 @ 1:00PM
Maybe your bed next?
Michele San Pietro| 3.1.13 @ 11:22AM
Arafat was just a murderer and a terrorist who wanted anything but peace. To give you just a small idea of who he was, I would like to remind you of what he did in 1989: 1) he approved of Khomeini's call to kill writer Salman Rushdie; 2) he approved of the massacre in Tien An Men square; 3) he was one of the very few foreigners to take part in the last Ceausescu's congress, just a month before the Rumanian tyrant was overthrown, and he sure wasn't there to criticize him.
gene| 3.1.13 @ 12:14PM
Genesis 12:3 ". And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed....."
"I" in this is the One and Only "I AM" Creator of the Universe.
"Thee" is God's Chosen People - The Jews.
"Them" are the Gentiles of the world. Repeatedly in the Bible, God states He will do terrible things to people who harm the Jews and Israel.
vtwin| 3.1.13 @ 12:59PM
What did Kaddafi get for Pan Am flight 103 and what did Osama get for 9/11? Too bad Arafat died before Obama became President.
What no Benghazi bullshit from Mr. Wilson today?
markenoff| 3.1.13 @ 1:58PM
Yeah, Bush was a real softee on terrorism. He captured terrorists and held them at "Club Gitmo". Obama takes a better approach. Just kill any suspected terrorists and anyone who might be standing around them at the time (wives, kids, neighbors, whoever) using drone strikes. Hell, I bet he's willing to use armed drones to kill US citizens without warrants or trials. None of that mamby pamby Bill of Rights stuff for him.
Occam's Tool| 3.1.13 @ 6:41PM
There are two problems with Barack's approach. One is that he doesn't squeeze these guys for actionable intelligence by capturing them instead of killing them. Secondly, there is collateral damage. Of the two, the loss of actionable info is by far the more important. KSM was far better alive for a decade in custody rather than dead, especially after the waterboarding. (Which caused no permanent injury, unlike what happened to McCain.)
markenoff| 3.1.13 @ 1:41PM
Yasser Arafat is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I've ever known in my life.
Occam's Tool| 3.2.13 @ 1:01PM
I like your style, markenoff.
Alan| 3.2.13 @ 5:48PM
With a face and a history only Jack@ss from Wisc. could love.
Alan| 3.2.13 @ 6:23PM
Shame somebody gave him a polonium cocktail.
Seek| 3.1.13 @ 6:11PM
Handsome little devil, no?
Occam's Tool| 3.1.13 @ 6:37PM
I have a High School Classmate who worked for the State Department in Kabul in the last few years. Arrogant Lefty Weenie to the core. Brown U grad.
Keith Laumer wrote the Retief series. Laumer was a former State Dept. officer. His comment was that the entire Department was a den of traitors. Remember Alger Hiss and leave it at that.
Arafat is FudgePacker Jack's favorite, as he typifies everything that Jack stands for.
Alan| 3.2.13 @ 5:51PM
Arafat, a worthless piece of porksh!t, Nobel winner in the fine company of Jimmy "the human roll of toilet paper" Carter and Al " fat bastard" Gore.
homme nike air max BW | 3.2.13 @ 12:20AM
The emergence of the United States as a primary Fedayeen target indicates a serious threat of further incidents similar to that of Khartoum. http://www.toairmaxfr.com/homm.....-c-15.html
Sean| 3.3.13 @ 11:44AM
What did Israel get for attacking the USS Liberty? Billions of US taxpayer dollars.
Marc Jeric| 3.3.13 @ 2:20PM
Establishment of jihadist regimes under Obama’s Arab Spring program (done in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt; still to go in Syria, Yemen, Lebanon, Gaza, West Bank, Afghanistan, Iraq, Jordan), and with help of the existing jihadist regimes in Turkey, Sudan, and Iran, will proceed soon to the destruction of Israel and the associated mass murder of all Jews there under a close supervision provided by Obama’s far-left gallery of rogues Kerry, Brennan, and Hagel. The Benghazi murder cover-up interrupted temporarily the transfer of arms to the Syrian jihadists; but it will continue after that interruption; Egyptian jihadists will receive 20 fighter jets and 200 tanks as Obama’s personal gift. This work will then inevitably earn Obama his second Nobel Piece Prize (his time for a real accomplishment – not like the first one given only on the basis of Hope & Change).
Rhoetus| 3.3.13 @ 8:10PM
Who cares? Nixon was just as big a subversive Progressive as TR, Wilson, FDR, JFK, LBJ and Carter, Bush41, Bush43 and ObaMao. Corruption R US.
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