NTPTATQ D 1 aPQf Associated Press
X ^1 T I C? JL^ lCnV Ik7 A Edited by Brandon Loomis
Syrian president calls for holy war on Israel
DAMASCUS, Syria - President
Hafez Assad on Thursday bitterly
decried the changes sweeping East
ern Europe as a boon to Israel and
called for a holy war “as long as
time” against the Jewish state.
The Syrian leader also fiercely
denounced the recent wave of Soviet
Jewish emigration to Israel in his first
public comment on the matter, saying
migrating Jews would force Pales
tinians from their homeland.
“Let us now perceive that Israel
was the first beneficiary, among all
nations of the world, of the interna
tional changes that have taken place,”
Assad told a youth rally marking his
socialist Baath party’s 27th anniver
sary in power.
The 6,500 youths and party activ
ists gathered in a basketball arena
interrupted the president 61 times with
applause or chanting during his 95
minute speech.
Assad complained that in socialist
countries once resolutely opposed to
Israel, “Zionists are now active eve
rywhere.”
Assad said pro-Israeli delegations
now often visit socialist countries, an
apparent reference to Israeli delega
tions that have won recognition for
their country from some Eastern
European slates.
Poland, Hungary and Czechoslo
vakia re-established relations with
Israel in the past six months. All the
Eastern European countries except
for Romania broke ties over the 1967
Arab-Israeli War.
The Zionist “influence has be
come clear in the media, where they
have infiltrated in more than ore
socialist country,” Assad added.
He alleged that Zionists in those
countries went in “hot pursuit” of
their foes in a campaign ranging from
“attacking the ideas of their oppo
nents” to “attack and assassination
in the streets.”
Assad, long a hard-line opponent
of Israel, vowed to continue his
struggle, “bearing in mind that the
time is long and our Jihad (holy war)
should be as long as time is.”
“We are just at the beginning of
this long time,” he added. “It is not
we who have to ask, ‘until when?’
Rather, the enemy is the one who
should ask this question.”
Assad said Israel still seeks a
“greater Israel from the Nile to the
Euphrates,” referring to a radical
version of Zionism that foresaw Jew
ish rule from Egypt to Iraq.
He denounced an expected mass
migration of Soviet Jews to Israel
stemming from greater freedom in
the Soviet Union.
He equated this freedom with
aggression,calling it ‘4the freedom of
occupying other people’s territory and
expelling them from their land.”
He said most Soviet Jews arc not
even descended from the ancient
Hebrew tribes, but rather from the
Khazar people of what is now the
Soviet Union, who converted to Juda
ism centuries ago.
“Beyond any doubt, the United
States played the major role in the
realization of Israeli desires,” Assad
said, adding that Washington should
“bear some of its responsibility, at
least in the last episode of the game. ’ ’
Assad did not hold the Soviet Union,
a long-time Syrian ally, responsible
for the Jewish exodus, however, and
he repeated his assertion that “the
relationship between Syria and the
Soviet Union is now as firm as ever. ’ ’
The Soviet Union has given Syria
massive economic and military aid,
including combat jets, tanks and
missiles. Syria reportedly owes the
Soviets SI5 billion for weapons.
Critics question motives of LBJ book;
Caro wont comment on one-sidedness
WASHINGTON - This town has
been seduced, intrigued, excited and
divided by a book about a politician
dead 17 years and an election that
took place 42 years ago.
The book is “Means of Ascent,”
which portrays a youthful Lyndon B.
Johnson willing to do almost any
thing to satisfy an all-consuming
political ambition. It is the second
volume of a projected four-volume
critical biography of Johnson by au
thor Robert Caro, who already has
devoted 14 years to the project.
Jack Valenti, aide to the former
president, calls Caro’s work “this
loathsome book” — but admits he
read every word when The New Yorker
serialized it in November, January
and February and will now proceed to
read the book whole.
“Why, why, why would a man
want to spend this much of his life
writing about a fellow that he can’t
stand and whose reputation he is so
passionately bent on destroying?” asks
Valenti.
l nc controversy picks up where it
left off following the appearance eight
years ago of Caro’s first volume, which
Washington Post critic Jonathan
Yardlcy said demonstrated the au
thor’s “enraged animus against
Lyndon Johnson.’’
Publisher Alfred Knopf, sensing a
blockbuster, printed 250,000 copies.
The New Yorker says its newsstand
sales showed a 5 percent blip when
the first excerpt appeared. Politics &
Prose bookstore co-owner Barbara
Meade said, “We have never had any
book where we have taken so many
pre-publication orders.’’
History buff Jeff Patterson, aide to
Rep. Mike Andrews, D-Tcxas, says
that in his office excerpts were photo
copied as fast as they appeared and
sent back to Texas.
Patterson shares Valenti’s com
plaint. “Caro sets out to make Johnson
look like a real jerk,” he says. “Give
me warts-and-all, but don’t try to
overdo it.”
Former Johnson aide Lloyd Hack
ler says Caro “puts more emphasis
on the negatives -- and God knows
Johnson had those - than on the posi
tives.” But he adds: “Its probably the
best job of research that anybody has
ever done on Johnson.”
The book covers seven years, from
Johnson’s 1941 defeat for a Senate
seat in a rigged election to his 1948
victory - by 87 votes -- over an
enormously popular former gover
nor, Coke Stevenson.
The theft by Johnson of that pri
mary election has been Texas lore for
years, but Caro provides new evi
dence of Johnson’s fraudulcnce.
The book also says Johnson pulled
strings in Washington to enhance the
power and value of a Texas radio
station that made him a millionaire.
And it says Johnson shamelessly
U1MUIICU d Wdl CdICCI III WHICH HC
flew in a battered B-26 under enemy
fire for only a few minutes -- then
accepted a politically useful Silver
Star from Gen. Douglas MacArthur.
Caro’s critics say his legwork is
meticulous and his writing thrilling,
but his viewpoint warped: He can
find little good -- or balanced •• to say
about Johnson and nothing bad to say
about Stevenson, ignoring his isola
tionism and racism. Patterson says
Stevenson comes across as “Saint
Coke.”
Political reporter David Broder,
reviewing the book in the Washing
ton Post, said Caro makes Johnson ‘ ‘a
complete scoundrel” and “a lying,
cunning, utterly unprincipled opera
tor.” BroderwondcredhowCarowill
dig his way out of that “Texas-si/.e
hole” in dealing with Johnson’s
achievements as Senate majority leader
and president.
Caro did not respond to messages
asking for a reply.
“We don’t want to respond to a
single review,’’ said Knopf publicist
Paul Bogaards.
But in the book’s introduction Caro
acknowledges he paints a portrait of a
despicable person.
While “bright and dark’’ threads
run through Johnson’s life, Caro writes,
no bright thread is visible in the pe
riod covered, a time “Johnson was all
but totally consumed by his need for
power and by his efforts to obtain it.”
“He obviously has seen Johnson’s
darker side,’’ says George Christian
of Austin, Texas, a former Johnson
press secretary. “I just hope that in
the subsequent volumes he gives
Johnson credit for what he did.”
Horace Busby, a Johnson associ
ate for 20 years, says he wants to
reserve judgment. But Busby offers
an observation on the controversial
Silver Star - a decoration that Johnson
used to great effect for the rest of his
political life.
“He didn’t seize the Silver Star,”
says Busby. “Mac Arthur, who was a
political general, gave it to him to
curry favor with Franklin Roosevelt,
who liked Johnson. What was Johnson
to do - throw it back?”
Najib says rebels purged;
coup leader promises fight
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Presi
dent Najib of Afghanistan said
Thursday that the military has been
purged of mutinous soldiers, but
the renegade general who led a
bloody coup attempt said from
hiding he would keep fighting.
Radio Kabul put the death toll
at 56 and said 200 people were
injured in fighting since Tuesday’s
air raid over Kabul. Some travelers
who witnessed the attacks said
civilian casualties appeared low
considering the ferocity of the
battles.
The normally bustling markets
of the capital opened again Thurs
day, and the war-weary city was
reported calm. Questions surfaced
about the strength and loyalty of
the Afghan air force, the key factor
in Najib’s survival since the Soviet
Union pulled its troops out of
Afghanistan last year.
Shah Nawaz Tanai, who as dc
ICIISC IIIMIIMII IdUIICIICU IIIC LUUJ)
attempt, said in a taped message to
his supporters Thursday: “We have
risen and our struggle will con
tinue.”
Tanai defected Wednesday to
the Moslem guerrillas battling
Najib’s government, but guerrilla
leaders made clear Thursday they
have no desire to join forces with
the hard-line Marxist.
“He’s no different than Najib.
How can we extend our support to
a Communist?” said Abdul Rasul
Sayyaf, leader of the radical Is
lamic Ittehad faction and prime
minister of the guerrillas’ govern
ment in exile.
Radio Kabul said Najib replaced
Tenai as defense minister Tuesday
and dismissed him Thursday from
the Supreme Defense Council.
Four other council members also
were replaced because of “national
dishonesty,’’ said the radio, moni
tored in Islamabad.
According to the radio, Najib
declared the mutinous troops had
been purged from the armed forces.
And a diplomat based in Kabul
quoted the president as telling a
news conference: “The microbes,
the radicals among us, have been
cleansed. We don’t have any more
factions. We are more united than
ever.”
According to the diplomat, who
refused to be identified further, Najib
said pro-Tanai soldiers had been
killed, arrested or had surrendered.
He again declared his government
was strong and urged Western na
tions to revise their pro-resistance
policies.
In his message, Tanai said he
was inside Afghanistan but he did
not say where.
“ I am sending this cassette with
my friend outside to be broadcast
to you,” he said in comments trans
lated by the guerrillas’ news agency
from Dari into English.
“Thisisacall for Afghanistan’s
Moslem people and the army and
the real party members. Najib and
his dictatorship will fall. For this
and for national unity, wc have
risen up.”
The tape was played to report
ers, who recognized Tanai’s voice
from military briefings, news con
ferences, and television appear
ances.
Tanai was in at least temporary
alliance with one of the most radi
cal guerrilla leaders, Gulbuddin
Hekmatyar.
Sibghatullah Mojaddidi, the
moderate president of the guerril
las’ exile government, rejected the
Tanai-Hekmatyar alliance. ‘‘Wc do
not have any understanding or soli
darity with either,” he said.
Tanai and Hekmatyar were bit
ter rivals during the 12 years of war
after the 1978 coup that installed a
Communist government in Afghani
stan. Tanai had opposed Najib’s
proposals to talk peace with the
guerrillas, and Hekmatyar said he
would only support an Islamic gov
ernment in Afghanistan.
They appeared united in their
desire to see Najib ousted.
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