America’s Worst and Best

Say what you will about Caligula’s plan to appoint his horse Incitatus to the Roman Senate, I find it less ridiculous than Jared Kushner’s role as Uncle Sam’s negotiator with Iran. If the stallion did attend any Senate sessions, we do not know. That Kushner negotiated with the Iranians, we do know. And we also know the results: “Nul,” as they say in France, where Kushner’s father, a criminal pardoned by Trump, is our ambassador.

Kushner and Steve Witkoff, a real-estate shark friend of the Donald’s, have been Uncle Sam’s top negotiators with Iran. If the Marx Brothers were around, they might have made a movie about the two, with Harpo plucking away as Tehran burned and burned. Real-estate deals with money to be made, yes, peace negotiations without profits, no was the message. Meanwhile, diplomats with vast experience in dealing with such matters remain in Washington, most likely taking the rays of spring. 

There is a simmering phoniness about Kushner playing Metternich; his unparalleled greed showed when he oiled his way down the line of multi-billionaires in the Rotunda during Trump’s inaugural. As of this writing, the bombing has ceased; hence “a whole civilization” is safe for the moment. No thanks to the American Talleyrand. A recent article in the Times traced the disastrous negotiations in Geneva, revealing that the Iranians were actually agreeing to the American demands, but the two real-estate sharks were too inexperienced on this level and too used to real-estate bombast to realize it. 

Unless it was done on purpose. Kushner and Witkoff, with no particular expertise in nuclear technology or Iranian politics, faced skilled Iranian negotiators who had hammered out the 2015 deal with Obama. When a deal was within reach, according to a skilled British negotiator-observer, it became obvious that the real-estate sharks did not fully understand what Iran was offering them. 

Again, this is a perfect Marx Brothers plot. It would make a great movie: The bad guys give in, but the good guys are too stupid to see it and turn it down. The two real-estate comedians even failed to see the face-saving device by the Iranians, and upped the ante instead. (Just as one does when an impoverished widow cannot pay the rent, and you give her 48 hours to clear out.) Kushner’s business, of course, has gone through the stratosphere because of the Saudis pouring billions into his funds. It is the way of the world today, but when I was still a schoolboy, President Dwight Eisenhower’s top aide, Sherman Adams, resigned in disgrace for having accepted a vicuña coat from one Bernard Goldfine. Kushner accepted $2 billion during Trump’s first term, and is getting another $3 billion from the Saudis during the second. 

I’ve never met the bum Kushner. As my children have known Ivanka since she was tiny, she once tried an introduction, but I moved away rather quickly. She’s a good woman, but the reason I think he’s the pits is the remark he made, looking at the ruins of Gaza with 72,000 dead underneath the rubble, about what a great beachfront project it would make. A statement like that reveals the very lowest visceral instincts of a low-life.  America is a funny place. It produces people like Kushner at the bottom, but also at the very, very top, men like Bob Novogratz.

Bob died last week, but his obituary did not appear in the Times. (That of some guy who sold denim pants did.) Bob’s parents came over from Austria, were poor Catholics, working class, but hard workers who believed in the American dream. Bob went to prep school at Blair, where I had ended up after being kicked out from Lawrenceville and Salisbury. My father helped with Bob’s scholarship. Bob played for two undefeated teams in football, and also captained the wrestling team in which he never lost a single match. As gentle and soft-spoken in conversation as he was ferocious on the field, he and I hit it off. Bob was interested in my European mannerisms, asking me why I held my knife and fork a certain way, and I explained to him how Europeans ate as compared to Americans. 

As he was a brilliant student and the perfect athlete, Yale bid for him, but he chose West Point. He was a member of the last undefeated Army team in 1958 under Red Blake, where he won the Knute Rockne Memorial Trophy for the best lineman in the nation. He could have gone pro, but chose to pay back the nation that had welcomed his parents to Pennsylvania. He served with great distinction in Vietnam and ended his career a full colonel. I only saw him once after we finished school, at our 50th reunion. Happily married to the same lady for 67 years, he had many children, and I believe one of his sons is a billionaire. No country ever got a better deal than when the Novogratz family moved over here. Bob was a real American hero, a John Wayne type, strong and silent, as soft spoken as his tackles were hard and clean. As the Ancient Greeks said to their fallen heroes, let the ground that covers you be soft, dear Bob.  

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