George W. Bush

Smart Reads April 25, 2013

April 25, 2013 12:00 pm by Amie Tsang

♦ The ever-growing ranks of unskilled and unemployed youth in Spain not only pose a challenge to the economy but are also threatening the fabric of Spanish society – a problem Madrid is only now beginning to address.
♦ Voter outrage sparks José Manuel Barroso’s concerns about eurozone belt-tightening.
♦ Paul Kevin Curtis, who has been cleared in the ricin letter investigation, might have been framed, according to his lawyer. James Everett Dutschke, another entertainer, is now the focus of the investigation and it seems that the two men’s lives have coincided before.
♦ Thirteen female corrections officers were charged with federal racketeering at a state prison in Maryland, US. “The indictment described a jailhouse seemingly out of control. Four corrections officers became pregnant by one inmate. Two of them got tattoos of the inmate’s first name, Tavon — one on her neck, the other on a wrist.”
♦The 200m emails to be kept in the George W. Bush Presidential Center are creating years worth of work for archivists, a growing problem for the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, the federal agency that keeps the nation’s trove of historic documents.
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Esther Bintliff A short history of US presidential visits to Israel

March 20, 2013 8:47 pm by Esther Bintliff

Barack Obama is only the fifth serving US president to visit Israel since the state was founded in 1948. As Marvin Kalb notes: “A presidential visit to Israel is not routine. Quite the contrary.” So who are the other four?

President Nixon speaking during the official banquet at the Knesset. Photo: GPO​.

President Nixon speaking during the official banquet at the Knesset. Photo: GPO

1) Richard Nixon made history as the first US president to visit Israel while in office. He and the first lady, Pat Nixon, touched down in Israel for 24 hours in June 1974 as part of a trip that included Austria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Jordan. According to Aaron David Miller, “Nixon’s trip was a largely a farewell tour, a last hurrah following his administration’s deep involvement in the 1973 Arab-Israeli war and the diplomacy that followed.”

The itinerary Nixon’s daily diary records that after giving a speech at Ben Gurian airport, the President “motored” to the King David Hotel in Jerusalem (where the president and his wife were staying in suite 429) accompanied by Ephraim Katzir, Israeli president, and Yitzhak Rabin, prime minister. Later, he went to “the residence of Golda Meir, former prime minister of Israel”, along with Henry Kissinger and Rabin. The following day, Nixon and the first lady went to the Yad Vashem memorial, where they took part in a ceremony for Jews killed during the Second World War. Nixon then went to the Knesset and met the Israeli cabinet.

Gifts from Israel to Nixon: A papyrus scroll, a menorah and a book entitled “Justice in Jerusalem”

Hotel: King David Hotel

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Posted in Israel, Middle East, US foreign policy |

Edward Luce Obama’s Hollywood problem

June 13, 2012 7:48 pm by Edward Luce

The gulf between US election fund-raising and the reality of middle-class life beyond the Washington beltway has always existed. But in the 2012 election it is becoming glaring. Read more

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Posted in US politics |

Off the chart: Bush tax cuts and the ‘fiscal cliff’

June 8, 2012 4:16 pm by Amie Tsang

In our Off the Chart series, we’ll be taking a look at a chart or graphic that accompanies one of our articles in the FT’s newspaper editions. Read more

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Posted in Off the Charts, US politics |