In early February, David Ness, deputy chief of the American mission in Cairo and an old acquaintance of Fulbright's, wrote the chairman warning him that the Middle East was teetering on the edge of an abyss, ready to plunge into war at a moment's notice. Arab nationalism, inflamed by the suffering of exiled Palestinians and fueled by Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser's ambition, was reaching a fever pitch. Ambassador Lucius Battle (former head of cultural affairs in State and another acquaintance of Fulbright's) was scheduled to leave in March, and Washington had not even thought of a replacement. The region was ready to explode, and the Johnson administration did not have a clue as to what was going on. Ness pled with Fulbright to help. “I will try to get the word through [to the White House and State Department] in the best way I can, ” the chairman replied. “I need not tell you that things are testy here in Washington these days, and one has to watch his step.”

Throughout the late 1950s and early 1960s, Egypt, Syria, and Jordan offered their territory as staging grounds for Palestinian guerrilla attacks into Israel. In 1964 Nasser, who still aspired to head a pan-Arab union, persuaded other Arab leaders to join him in creating the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and financing a guerrilla army whose purpose it would be to wrest Palestine from Israel. Al Fatah (“conquest”) began raiding Israel from Syria and Jordan. When Israel responded with devastating reprisal attacks against its two Arab neighbors, the Soviet Union declared its support for the Palestinian movement and began shipping large quantities of tanks and planes to Syria.