Winning Support
In order to gain support for the AWACS deal in Congress and in the country, the Administration lobbied strongly on behalf of it. Though it continually stated the AWACS deal would benefit U.S. “interests” in the Middle East, the Administration also gave promises of the AWACS planes’ importance in securing peace. In a speech to Congress, Alexander Haig said that if the AWACS sale was blocked, “our security, the security of Israel and peace itself (might) be endangered,” Reagan himself promoted the AWACS sale saying, “By contributing to the stability of the area, it improves Israeli security.” The Administration even commissioned former government officials to speak about AWACS as part of the peace cause. Richard Nixon’s Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said “it is essential for the peace process in the Middle East.”
Congress approved the AWACS sale, and as part of the then largest arms export ever, the planes were a symbolic commitment to the U.S./Saudi relationship.
Read more about this topic: US/Saudi AWACS Sale
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—John Berger (b. 1926)
“All experience teaches that, whenever there is a great national establishment, employing large numbers of officials, the public must be reconciled to support many incompetent men; for such is the favoritism and nepotism always prevailing in the purlieus of these establishments, that some incompetent persons are always admitted, to the exclusion of many of the worthy.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)