Influence and arms: John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson and the politics of arms sales to Israel, 1962–1966

Abstract

This article examines the relationship between Israel and the United States in the years immediately preceding the June 1967 War. In doing so, it challenges the widely held view that prior to Israel's victory in that war the United States refrained from any significant strategic relationship with the Jewish state. In particular, by examining in detail the decision of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations to sell advanced military hardware – the Hawk short-range anti-aircraft missile, the M-48A Patton tank and the A-4E SkyhawK fighter-bomber – to Israel in the first half of the 1960s, it clearly shows that the seeds of a strategic partnership had been planted prior to Israel's comprehensive defeat of its Arab opponents in 1967.