Dornan Outlines His Views on Anti-Semitism

The Times is usually fair even when on the attack, but in my eight years as a congressman I do not recall an editorial (March 2) so contemptuous of the truth as your malicious attack on me. The attack was followed by two Saturdays of letters to the editors (March 8 and March 22) 6-to-1 against me, understandably ripping me because of your original out-of-context quote totally distorting by 180 degrees the obvious intent of what I was trying to say about an anti-Semitic, Communist agent, Vladimir Posner Jr., who is always under KGB discipline although posing as a Radio Moscow commentator.

I’m literally writing my response in Room 518 at the King David Hotel looking out over the 3-millennia-old city of Jerusalem. This is my 11th personally funded trip to the Holy Land.

What does a Times editor know of my love for Israel or its people? Obviously, not very much. You’re probably going to claim you are ignorant of my three-decade record of speaking out against anti-Semitism, correct? You’re unaware of my efforts for over eight years (a record second to none in the Congress) for Russian Prisoners-of-Conscience and Soviet Jewry, right? You know nothing of my several trips to Latvia, Ukraine, Leningrad and Moscow to meet with heroic Jewish refused-niks persecuted by the Kremlin, correct?

Today, Easter, after Mass and communion at the tomb of Jesus I went with the youngest of my five children, Kathleen, to the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial. She was profoundly moved as I was, again, on this my seventh visit to this hallowed ground. To contemplate on this incomparable hilltop the mind-numbing ultimate horror of European anti-Semitism and, then, realize that, through cleverly crafted half-truth, omission and unsubstantiated hearsay, the respected Los Angeles Times is telling the world that Bob Dornan is a closet bigot . . . well, that is truly disgusting.

Why did my Jewish colleagues rush to my side in my defense, and the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai Brith, Americans for a Safe Israel, the American-Israel Public Affairs Council, the Israeli Embassy, the National Jewish Coalition, the Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies, plus others? Why?

And you obviously have not researched the background of ABC Nightline’s “guest commentator on President Reagan” (and Phil Donahue’s co-host for a two-hour TV special) Vladimir Posner, or the sleazy background of his father, also named Vladimir. Are you not aware that both Posners ignominiously have betrayed their Jewish heritage as informers and propagandists against Russian Jews. Posner Sr. testified for Stalin at the infamous Jewish doctors trial, Junior Posner is now one of the Kremlin’s main mouthpieces attempting to cover up Soviet state-sponsored suppression of Hebrew schools, teachers, culture and religion.

Through Nazi-type reasoning, Russian Jews are by policy third-class citizens denied access to all scientific, military, media and political occupations. The exceptions, the turncoats like the Posners, are Communist agents. And you call him a Radio Moscow commentator. Disgraceful.

In this century only the Third Reich and the current governments of Iraq and Iran have spawned anti-Semitic policies as evil as those enforced by today’s Kremlin.

You do know, but did not report, that the junior Posner was not born in the United States (only partially raised in New York City), so I was not referring to his “betraying” the United States but rather that he is a turncoat and betrayer of his fellow 2.1 million Soviet Jews whom he regularly maligns as “traitors” and/or “CIA agents.”

You want your readers, of course, to believe that there was an “absence of malice” in your attack-dog approach to analyzing my verbal omission of the word “turncoat” between “betraying little” and the word “Jew.” It was very evident that was rushing to jam a two-minute speech into one minute with the Speaker’s gavel banging in the background that my time had expired. Why did you leave out my preceding sentence that explained Posner covered up”anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union?” Why did you leave out my concluding sentence that putting Posner on American television unidentified, except as a “commentator who was raised in the United States,” was “an affront to Jewish people everywhere in the world?” Taking my one-minute speech in its totality, missing words not withstanding, it is a statement against an anti-Semite not the opposite as characterized by your editorial. To twist the facts and conceal the truth is a monstrous perversion.

No malice on your part? How about your alleging that I “stormed into a parish rectory” in Orange County last year. A lie. And the second time The Times has printed that lie. It flat out never happened. I’m a loyal, faithful Catholic who was raised to always be deeply respectful of my clergy. It is a grotesque distortion of truth to accuse me of an offensive sacrilege.

And, about your final insult to my honor. The most transparent lie of all is your assertion that my “own GOP colleagues once eased him out of office by eliminating his district.” What rubbish! Your newspaper has reported regularly since September 1981 on the running court battles over the outrageously butchered re-mapping, gerrymandering, of all of California’s legislative districts by a handful of liberal Democrats.

My 17 Republican congressional colleagues not only fought to save my seat in the House with court challenges but failing that talked me into trying a comeback in Orange County. They endorsed me to a man, one and all, raised thousands of dollars for my campaign, and physically came into the 38th District to speak for me. They regularly express great satisfaction that I am back in the House doing battle with the appeasers and big spenders.

I have great affection for my Republican brothers and sisters. Ask them if it is not mutual.

If you run this Jerusalem-written letter in its entirety, all is forgiven and we begin anew.

ROBERT K. DORNAN

Member of Congress

38th District

Garden Grove