In the Sept. 9, 1988, issue of the Baltimore Jewish Times, Washington correspondent James D. Besser covered an issue surrounding “60 Minutes,” AIPAC and Israel.
Sound familiar?
Besser wrote about an upcoming segment on the long-running CBS news magazine. Mike Wallace, who Besser said was known for “his ferocious interviewing style,” and “having crossed swords with AIPAC in the past,” planned to talk to the lobbying group for a story reportedly focused on the connection between lobbying groups and political action committees.
Wallace was ethnically Jewish but not religious. At the time, “60 Minutes” had been on the air nearly 20 years. Today, the show is in the midst of a tumultuous restructuring, led by conservative commentator and editor-in-chief of CBS News Bari Weiss. This summer, several well-known correspondents departed the show (either on their own or by the choice of the network) and new hires, some with a more conservative perspective, joined.
AIPAC, Besser wrote, had a history of “shyness with the media, based on the belief that the American public would not look with favor on the techniques that are basic to every lobbying group, Jewish and non-Jewish.”
Today, it is still largely quiet, although it is the topic of many conversations. While Israeli actions in Gaza have come under fire in the United States and around the world, antisemitism is also increasing in the U.S. There are many who criticize the lobbying group and its political influence. Criticism of AIPAC also sometimes includes antisemitic rhetoric.
It may be difficult to track down a “60 Minutes” segment from the late 1980s, but it is surprisingly easy to find coverage of the segment published after the fact.
In October 1988, JTA wrote “AIPAC attempted to deflect ahead of time Wallace’s charges that it ‘sets the line’ for some 80 pro-Israel political action committees, in violation of federal laws governing PACs.”
It reported the main point of Wallace’s report was AIPAC has undue influence on billions of dollars of federal aid without much, or any, congressional debate.
“The report appeared to charge that AIPAC has engineered the defeat of U.S. senators and representatives because of their poor voting records on foreign aid and arms sales to Arab countries,” JTA wrote.
In 2026, many candidates are being billed as ones that either take or don’t take AIPAC money, and sometimes that charge seems to outweigh all others. When Graham Platner, then-Democratic candidate for a Senate seat in Maine dropped out of the race this summer amid sexual abuse allegations, his Instagram comments were flooded with those claiming AIPAC had somehow engineered the collapse of his campaign.
Support for AIPAC isn’t as simple as being divided along party lines. As “60 Minutes” is restructured, some correspondents may subscribe to the idea that Israel is an important ally in the Middle East, while others may be more traditionally isolationist, or, as some say, “America First.”
aguckes@midatlanticmedia.com
