Lyndon B. Johnson has been called an 'accidental president.' From his predecessor, John F. Kennedy, he inherited an administration full of bright, energetic, and ivy-league educated people - dubbed by one historian as 'the best and the brightest.' Among these Kennedy officials was a particularly driven National Security Council staffer named Robert Komer, who made it his personal mission to have the U.S. form better relations with Egypt's President, Gamal Abdel Nasser, after diplomatic relations were nearly severed during the Eisenhower years. This book brings to light the diplomatic efforts of Robert Komer who through strategy and realpolitik was able to have an outsized influence over American foreign policy towards Egypt. Komer was a figure who should have been in the periphery, but instead was at times in the driver's seat of American foreign policy. While Kennedy and Komer saw the benefit of having good relations with arguably the most powerful leader in the Middle East, Johnson did not share his predecessor's enthusiasm for courting Nasser with large amounts of economic aid. Moreover, bilateral relations were further strained by a series of conflicts early on in Johnson's presidency. Ultimately, the administration was left with people who did not share Kennedy/Komer's enthusiasm for good relations with Egypt. The book chronicles three distinctive phases in U.S.-Egyptian relations under Johnson leading up to the outbreak of the June 1967 Arab-Israeli War - when Nasser suddenly reneged on his understanding with Kennedy not to provoke an Arab war against Israel. Appealing to scholars of Middle Eastern history and foreign policy, it reveals a new perspective on the causes of war that was to change the face of the Middle East.

Book Information
ISBN 9780755634026
Author Gabriel Glickman
Format Hardback
Page Count 304
Imprint I.B. Tauris
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Weight(grams) 156g