Richard H. Curtiss 

 Special to Arab News

Arab News

WASHINGTON, 27 June 2003 — According to Alison Beard of Britain’s Financial Times, “multi-millionaire Mortimer Zuckerman always seems to have at least two conversations running in his head at all times. He answers a reporter’s questions in one breath, then asks an assistant about materials he needs for another meeting in the next. One dialogue is in the present with you, the other is about the future with himself.”

The more one tries to figure out Mortimer Zuckerman — financier, media-mogul and man-about-several-towns (New York, Washington, DC and Boston) — the more confused one gets. Aside from his complete self-absorption, Zuckerman generally knows when to hold ’em and when to fold ’em, and does it extremely well. As an international financier, he lost a lot from the “dot.com” mess, but not nearly as much as most of his contemporaries. While many of the high-finance fliers never recovered, Zuckerman now is right where he was before.

He also does things quite differently from anyone else. Zuckerman moved beyond real estate with his 1980 purchase of The Atlantic Monthly magazine, to which he quickly added a regular bylined column. Although he enjoyed his new plaything, he soon began to lose his employees when, according to other media colleagues, he “kept meddling with the product.” This didn’t bother Zuckerman, however, who in rapid succession acquired US News and World Report, and New York City’s last non-Jewish-owned newspaper, the Daily News.

Interestingly, an earlier contender for ownership of that newspaper was Robert Maxwell, who was born in Eastern Europe, and was deeply involved in international intrigue during and after World War II. Maxwell, who also was interested in the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine, earlier had attempted to buy the Daily News.

Maxwell’s demise left Zuckerman working hard to become the new publisher of the New York Daily News. This time no slippery deck intervened, and Zuckerman went ahead with the purchase — which, however, has not been without problems.

Zuckerman continued his unhappy relationship with his editors in most of his media purchases. The numbers who have resigned or were forced out over the years is an unfinished story. Steven Waldman, national affairs editor at The US News and World Report says: “The better the magazine got, the angrier Mort got. That’s the psychology here I can’t pretend to understand.”

This, perhaps, is Mortimer Zuckerman’s strangest characteristic. He seems to be jealous of anyone else, and insists on running his own show. According to Daily News staff members, Zuckerman will come to the office with stories from café society and demand space for the flimsiest or most trivial tales merely because he has heard gossip on the subject.

Zuckerman’s interest in Jewish affairs has increased in recent years. He has always had money to fund his pet projects, from The Friends of the Israeli Defense Forces, to the America-Israel Friendship League. But his fondest hope was to become head of the Council of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations (CPMAJO).

Already having paid his dues, in a sense, through his generosity to Jewish causes, Zuckerman was willing to pay a lot more for the privilege of being chairman of the CPMAJO. Indeed, it seemed that his campaign was on track, until some Jewish insiders pointed out that his new bride was not Jewish. This apparently became a severe stumbling block.

By that time Mortimer and Marla Zuckerman’s child was five years old. Whether through serendipity or opportunism, the couple decided to separate. Zuckerman took a townhouse near his apartment so that his daughter could visit whenever she wanted — and the way was cleared for him to accept the CPMAJO presidency. A disciple of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Zuckerman is deeply involved with the Jewish lobby in working to remove Palestinians to Jordan, “or some small space elsewhere in the world,” wrote Alexander Cockburn in the June 1, 2003 Financial Times.

Zuckerman has the money to spend on what’s important to him. Unfortunately, therefore, Zuckerman now is a serious obstacle on the road map to peace.

— Richard H. Curtiss is executive editor of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.