Mortimer Benjamin Zuckerman

<youtube size="tiny" align="right" caption="Zuckerman tells Fox News: 'In fact, I helped write one of [Obama's] speeches'">kP79FUZzgD0</youtube> Mortimer Benjamin Zuckerman is (born 4 June 1937, Montreal) is an American media mogul and real estate magnate who was listed in 2008 by Forbes as the 147th richest man in the country. Between 2001-2003, Zuckerman was the chairman of the Israel lobby group Presidents Conference.

Zuckerman supported Barack Obama in the 2008 elections, but has grown highly critical because of what he perceives the administration to be insufficiently supportive of Israel. However, he lauded the administration for its defense of Israel following the massacre of nine humanitarian activists by Israeli commandos on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla.

Fortunately, the Obama administration refused to participate in such moral hypocrisy, as it steered the United Nations Security Council into a neutral protest and then blocked demand for an international inquiry into Israel’s conduct.

Friends in High Places

In a flattering profile for the New Yorker, Nick Paumgarten lists Zuckerman's various personal assosications with high US and Israeli officials, including Bill Clinton and Ehud Olmert. He spoke to Paumgarten about Israel:

"I met all the major players, and we basically talked. We reviewed both their strategic position and their tactical position, let's put it that way." He said that he'd gone as "an analyst," on authority he finds it difficult or indiscreet to specify. "I have been involved with these people for years and years and years," he said. "And so you have a certain history, where either they trust your judgment and confidentiality or they don't." He explains the nuances of American politics and policy to the Israelis and then comes home and explains the nuances of Israeli politics and policy to the Americans.

He had a less high opinion of former Israeli Defense Minister and Labor leader Amir Peretz who according to Zuckerman naivelywanted to speak to the Palestinians from a position of empathy.

William Casey's open fly

Zuckerman also regaled Paumgarten with stories that highlighted his close relations with other high officials. He told the journalist that after the arrest on espionage charges of Nicholas Daniloff, a Moscow correspondent for the U.S. News & World Report, in 1986 he went to Moscow to facilitate his. He then met CIA director William Casey.

"Casey came to my office," Zuckerman started in. "It was the end of the day, and he was wearing black tie...Now, Casey shared with me some of the most extraordinary things. I couldn't believe what he was willing to share with me. I don't know how else to put this, but it was very hard for me to concentrate on it, because he had his fly open. I didn't know what to expect. Would a microphone come out of the zipper?"

Reagan's jokes

According to Zuckerman, to Zuckerman the Daniloff affair also cemented his friendship with Ronald Reagan

"Among the reasons we hit it off was that he loved to tell jokes," Zuckerman told me. "I would be invited to dinners with Reagan, even private dinners. I'd be sitting at his table, and we would tell jokes...The wonderful thing about Reagan," Zuckerman went on, "is that he would tell jokes that were apropos of the moment. And, by the way, as I spent more time with him he would tell some of these jokes over and over again."

Zuckerman claims that Reagan had confided in him about the Iran-Contra affair in a personal call.

Reagan...was being criticized for doing more for Daniloff than for American hostages being held in Beirut, and he knew that Zuckerman was going to be on the David Brinkley show that weekend. Zuckerman told me, "On this telephone call, Reagan tells me of all the unbelievable--all the covert operations they did to try to get these guys out. And he said, 'You can't talk about this specifically, by the way--and we've been talking with Iran.'...So when I was on the Brinkley show I said, 'Look, I'm not in a position to describe it in detail. But I can tell you that I have been briefed on what the government is doing on behalf of the hostages in Beirut, and I can tell you if it were possible to describe it you would never say that they weren't doing enough.'

The Media Empire

Zuckerman's foray into media began in 1980. 'I didn't go into journalism to make money--a wise decision,' he told the New Yorker. The reasons for this move have been subject of much speculation. According to Paumgarten,

[U.S. News & World Report] did provide a calling card, or a press pass, to help Zuckerman gain access to the Washington scene and to the halls of power in various capitals...Certainly, his journalistic credential got him a spot on television...And it provided him the opportunity to write a weekly column, which is a source of both pleasure and pride to him...

Likewise, according to Paumgarten, he bought the tabloid the New York Daily News

because it gave him a voice in local affairs, as well as, occasionally, in national ones. It can be useful, also, for a real-estate developer to have a paper; it gives him leverage.

But according to Paumgarten, Zuckerman is touchy on the subject.

Zuckerman told me, "You're going to get people who think, as someone said to me once, that I bought The Atlantic so that I could get invited to Wasp dinner parties on the North Shore. And I said, 'Before I bought The Atlantic I was invited to those dinner parties and they were so goddam boring I wouldn't go again if I was invited.' People can ascribe whatever motives they want. I can't help that." But the criticism still grates.

Zuckerman vs Journalism

Zuckerman is known for his heavy-handed influence on the editorial line, the high turnover of editors. U.S. News & World Report has changed eight editors in twenty-three years. the New York Daily News has changed seven in fifteen. Only William Whitworth of The Atlantic kept his seat until Zuckerman sold it in 1999. Few have spoken out: 'In some cases,' writes Paumgarten, 'his former employees have signed non-disclosure or non-disparagement agreements.'

The Atlantic

In 1980 Zuckerman began purchasing major American media institutions. His first purchase was the respected The Atlantic magazine. He immediately fired editor Robert Manning and replaced him with William Whitworth. Zuckerman's purchase also included The Atlantic's historic headquarters which he later sold for ten million dollars.

U.S. News & World Report

In 1984 Zuckerman purchase the U.S. News & World Report along with its real estate. He named himself the editor-in-chief and claimed that he wished to turn it into the US counterpart to The Economist. Instead he sold the paper's properties in Washington's West End for over a hundred million dollars and moved its offices to Georgetown, gutted the staff, and shuttered its investigative division.'We have to come up with a business model that works,' he told the New Yorker.

New York Daily News

In 1993, Zuckerman bought the tabloid the New York Daily News which was once the largest-circulation newspaper in the country. The paper's former owner Robert Maxwell had just drowned to death. The paper has been in decline but its main competitor is Rupert Murdoch's money-losing New York Post (estimated annual losses of twenty million dollars). Despite their sensationalist content, according Paumgarten, the papers 'do tend to honor a tacit nonaggression pact regarding the owners' private lives.'

Media Allies

Zuckerman has many influential friends in the media, from talk show celebrity Barbara Walters to film producer Irwin Winkler. He has even guest hosted on the Charlie Rose show. He is a close friend of the neoconservative former New York Times executive editor A. M. Rosenthal. Rosenthal used the pages of New York Times to defend Zuckerman.

"...I was always indebted to him." Another reason Zuckerman might feel indebted to Rosenthal was that in 1985, two days after the Times ran an unflattering story about him, the paper published an editor's note, apologizing for its tone: "The pejorative phrases and anonymous criticism created an unbalanced portrait. They should not have appeared." After Rosenthal was forced to retire from the Times, in 1999, Zuckerman hired him to be a columnist at the News.

Former Times (London) editor Harry Evans, Zuckerman told Paumgarten is

a friend, consigliere, and proxy of Zuckerman's for three decades. Zuckerman is a godfather to Evans's daughter with his wife, Tina Brown. Evans has had various roles at Zuckerman publications--as a kind of wise man with a vague portfolio. For a while, he served as their editorial director, in one of Zuckerman's many mercurial attempts to address his restiveness about them.

Affiliations

• US News & World Report - publisher and editor-in-chief since 1984
• New York Daily News - publisher
• Washington Institute for Near East Policy - board of advisors
• Herzliya Conference - panelist
• The Atlantic - publisher (1980-1999)
• Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations - chairman (2001-2003)